The painting, now in the collection of the Bath’s Victoria Art Gallery.
It is possibly the painting listed in an auction catalogue of Ralph Allen’s estate in 1769.
Surprisingly little is known of the life of John Padmore, whose major achievements in engineering occurred in the 1730's. He was involved in the design and construction of Ralph Allen's Combe Down tramway, built c.1729-30 for transporting stone from the newly-opened Combe Down quarries to Dolemead Wharf, on the river Avon at Bath, and in about 1731 his name is linked with attempts to solve structural problems in the Bristol Church of St Nicholas.
.
In 1735 the Great Crane of Bristol was erected on the side of the new Mud Dock, and in the 1742 edition of his Tour, Daniel Defoe refers to this crane as being 'the workmanship of the late ingenious Mr Padmore'.
It is possible that Padmore had died a little earlier, in about 1740, for a minute of the Committee of the Society of Merchant Venturers for the 18th of October of that year notes that Mrs Padmore attended and offered to sell a crane 'which is already made'.
Unfortunately the engravings within have been folded and the automatic scanning process does not recognise this and so they are very much compromised. Volume 2 -
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucm.532665645x&seq=6
Amore useful online version of Volume 1 is available at
.............................
https://eprints.oxfordarchaeology.com/765/13/7_CODOM01_Chapter05.pdf
