Description: Thomas William Hammond 1854-1935. Born in Philadelphia of Nottingham emigres, and orphaned at the age of four, he came to England with his younger sister Maria and lived for a short while with his grandparents in Mount Street. In 1868 age 14 he enrolled in the Government School of Art. On the 1871 census he is described as a lace curtain designer, and in 1872 he was awarded the 'Queen's Prize for a Design of a Lace Curtain'. Other prizes followed and in 1877 he was again awarded the Queen's Prize, this time for the design for a damask table Cloth. Hammond was an indefatigable worker, and soon began to use his skills as a draftsman to record aspects of the changing town. He began showing his work at local venues in 1882 and in 1890 exhibited for the first time at the Royal academy. His real hobby was black and white sketching in charcoal. He drew about 350 pictures all together mainly scenes of a Nottingham he knew but which has largely passed away today. Extracted from 'The Changing Face of Tom Hammond's Nottingham' by John Beckett which is the introductory essay in 'A City in the Making Drawings of Tom Hammond'. This sketch drawn from the south bank of the canal shows us the old Carrington Street bridge which preceded the modern structure. Its graceful arch is reminiscent of Trent Bridge and it did its work well and carried the traffic of its day nobly. However, the girder bridge which has taken its place is more suitable for modern heavy traffic than the delightful bridge that Mr Hammond shows us. Carrington Street was not formed until 1829 and for long after that it only stretched as far south as the present London Midland and Scottish Railway Station. Until Arkwright Street was formed all the traffic along Carrington Street turned down Queens Road and joined the main stream of traffic along London Road. A little to the west of the point from which the picture is drawn was situated the Navigation Inn on Wilford Road, the Ultima Thule of our forefathers, for it marked the limit of bricks and mortar, and all beyond it was open country - the Meadows so dear to the hearts of bygone generations. The Navigation Inn was used as a sort of port, for from it were run a series of passenger boats on the canal. Boats ran to Cromford, then a very important manufacturing town, twice a week; the fare was five shillings first class or three shillings second class; to Leicester the first class fare was five shillings while the second class was two and sixpence. I have never been able to find the reason for the difference of sixpence in these two second class fares; the first class was the same in each case. Image and descriptive text taken from 'Nottingham Past and Present', published in 1926.