The Last of England painted by Ford Maddox Brown

This most famous painting of Ford Maddox Brown was painted in the 1850s- about ten years before John Albert Berryman Wills and Anne Reed left England for North America.  Brown was a Pre-Raphaelite painter who captured the moment of sadness every emigrant feels leaving home when they know they will never see family again.  When I think of John and Anne leaving Cornwall and England for North America, this is the image I see.  It is a young couple with hope, sadness and fear of the unknown.  We do not know the ship, the port of departure or arrival,  the date, or the details but they made it and today we are a North American family because they braved the trip across the Atlantic.