An artist trained in the British military tradition, Caddy is unusual in that he was born in Canada. The son of a British army officer stationed in Canada, Caddy spent his early years at Amherstburg, Upper Canada, where his father was posted to Fort Malden. At age 14, Caddy was accepted as a cadet at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, England, and left Canada for Britain. He eventually served with the British army in various locations in the West Indies, Canada and Britain before retiring to Canada on half-pay in 1844. He settled with his family in London, Canada West, where he worked as city engineer, and then in Hamilton, where he was an engineer for the Great Western Railway. Throughout these careers, Caddy was a diligent amateur artist and eventually he devoted himself full time to painting. He taught painting in Hamilton from 1857 and produced a wide variety of watercolour images, including some twenty known views of Niagara Falls, famous as one of the wonders of the world. His watercolours of this mature period illustrate his facility with the medium, his skill at composition and his sense of colour. Canadian Falls, Niagara From Table Rock demonstrates Caddy’s awareness of the dramatic possibilities for representation of the Canadian landscape.