Description
John Sackhouse, an Inuit from Greenland, arrived in Scotland in 1816 aboard the whaling ship, the “˜Thomas and Ann.’ He often put on displays of his sailing and hunting skills in Leith Harbour, advertising via handbills, but within a year he had moved to Edinburgh to work as the protege of artist Alexander Nasmyth. After serving as an interpreter with the Admiralty Board, Sackhouse returned to Edinburgh in 1819 before succumbing to typhoid in February of that year. His portrait is currently on display in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
Bibliographic sources
Image credit engraving by John Murray from a painting by Sackhouse himself – National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.