Walter Langley was the son of a Birmingham tailor. He worked in the jewellery trade before taking up painting full-time. Langley was one of a group of artists who settled in the small fishing village of Newlyn in Cornwall. Langley was a lively and sociable member of the group and enjoyed playing his banjo with them. They painted the ordinary people of the village going about their normal lives. Langley said that his interest was in ‘the workers and the toilers’.

Like some contemporary French artists, the Newlyn School of painters worked outdoors to make their pictures look more realistic.