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Albert Houthuesen was born in Amsterdam and studied in London. During the 1930s he and his wife Catherine visited Trelogan, near the Point of Ayr Colliery, each year, staying in a cottage which belonged to her family. He was fascinated with the people and customs of Trelogan and the surrounding villages, and the working life of the colliers. While there he painted grand scale portraits of people close to the bottom of the social hierarchy. Having grown up in great poverty himself he regarded them as his equals, and brought to these paintings an intensity rarely seen in the portraiture of the day. This work is one of his most monumental.