Resembling a putto, we know this playful child is Hugh Miller, who gazes out to sea for a sign of his father’s boat, a shipmaster in the coasting trade. The words written by Smetham provide a bittersweet tone to the composition and this combination of words and pictures so as well as the gilded oak frame is typical of Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics.

This painting exemplifies Smetham’s association and collaboration with the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood mainly due to close personal friendships with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, an integral artist of the brotherhood. Painted in Rossetti's studio, the woman’s appearance is remarkably like that of Rossetti's wife and muse Elizabeth Siddall. It is also one of his most sensual paintings mainly because of the man’s directed gaze at Irene’s chest whereas her gaze is averted.

Here Smetham borrows imagery from the Bible’s “The Lord of the Sabbath” with a wheat field. The landscape lends itself to the Pre-Raphaelite undertaking of nature; infusing it with the close family orientated principles of the Methodist doctrine as a mother teaches her child the bible story as she points to the labours. This comments on the Christian ideas of duty and community as the boy observes the field workers.

Three figures stand in front of an arch, Earl Siward stands in the middle being held. The etching ‘The Death of Earl Siward’ depicts and commemorates the death of Siward the Strong, leader of the English army in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, who wished to die clothed in his armour standing upright. This print reflects ideas in the Methodist church about how death is a step closer to eternal life with God.

Thomas Freeman, a British Methodist missionary, is shown disengaged with the viewer, turning his head in three quarter profile towards the landscape. The background situated him on the Gold Coast. He established multiple schools focusing predominantly on biblical knowledge, literacy and arithmetic and was regarded as a pioneer to this institute in West Africa.

This work is a watercolour on paper, depicting a young woman practising a method of dehulling rice by continually raising and then dropping the heavy head or pestle of the pounder into a block or mortar. The artist served as an Educational Missionary in South India from 1923-1951.

This painting by John Jackson depicts a praying Mary Taft, who was a key female figure in the Methodist Church. Her preaching was inspiring to many yet she was also a problematic figure within the debate of whether to allow female preachers within the Church. In 1803 at the annual Methodist Conference, strict restrictions were placed against female preachers. These restrictions would not be lifted until 1973.

Commissioned by Bletchley Park College, which Cohen transformed during her time as principal, the preparatory sketch depicts the hand of the sitter for her official portrait. The college served, during a time where opportunities for young females were scarce, as an educational institute for women to learn about engineering, science, music, and the arts. Cohen is remembered for spearheading the emancipation of women within academia in the twentieth century.

Dunbar’s ‘Alpha’ and ‘Omega’ panels were painted for the library of Bletchley Park College as an alternative to Dunbar’s unfinished Bletchley Mural. They are based on the college motto ‘In my ends is my beginning’ which is represented by the shape of the hunting horn and an idea related to a chapter in Revelation. The finished panels have since been moved to Wheatley and now belong to Oxford Brookes University.

This sketch is thought to be of Evelyn’s brother Alec, the second youngest of her four siblings. There is speculation, however, that it may in fact depict her eldest sibling Jessie, as a portrait of her shows her with a very similar haircut. Furthermore, she is often depicted in side profile or with her eyes closed due to a squint in her eye, as seen in Jessie Dunbar, c.1932.

Cyclone Flora was a category 4 hurricane which hit the Caribbean in 1963. Jean-Baptiste's painting trembles on the cusp of Petite Riviere de Nippe, seconds before the cyclone hits. The immense intensity of the wave overpowers the structures below, highlighting the relative fragility of humankind. Cyclone Flora originated from the collision of the Intertropical Convergence Zone trade winds, which area significant cause of atmospheric heating.

Flora is a token of Smetham's lifelong fascination with the English countryside. As a friend of John Ruskin, Smetham aimed to accurately portray nature as it appeared before him, following the hallmarks of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Smetham recalls the Yorkshire countryside in his letters, as he would "...[regard] the distant blueness of the hills, and [see] the laurels shake..." The countryside gave Smetham inspiration to paint from life.