Hemsley’s genre scenes of everyday life, usually painted on a small scale, follow the style of the ‘Cranbrook Colony’ artists. This was a group of artists who met each summer from the late 1850s at Cranbrook in Kent, under the leadership of the artist Thomas Webster. The group’s aim was to paint simple, unaffected scenes of country life, especially of children. These artists depicted an idealised view of childhood and of life in the countryside, which disguised the harsh realities of poverty and hunger. Hemsley, in this tradition, painted children at play and scenes from the everyday lives of poor families.