On leaving Dedham Grammar School, John Constable spent seven years (until the age of 23) working in his father’s offices and mills. John’s main job was keeping his father’s East Bergholt windmill which entailed him in close observtion of skies in order to predict the wind conditions – and hence trim the sails appropriately.
John’s mother, Ann was well aware of her son’s ambitions as an artist and introduced him to Sir George Beaumont, an amateur artist and art collector, whose mother lived in nearby Dedham. Lord Beaumont was an influential figure and later on possibly eased Constable’s student entry into the Royal Academy.
This discipline of studying skies in order to trim windmill sails proved invaluable to him when he came to paint the skies in his Suffolk paintings and for which he became famous in adult life.