The Ink and the Iron The year is 1848. A steam frigate named HMS Avenger cuts through the water, and its likeness appears in the pages of the Illustrated London News. This marks the beginning of a long, steady tenure for Edwin Weedon. He is not merely a painter of scenes but a chronicler of a changing era. As a staff illustrator for the publication, his hand tracks the transition from sail to steam, capturing the mechanical pulse of the mid-nineteenth century. His work is a visual record of maritime evolution, documented through the precise lines of an illustrator tasked with making the sea l…