Gordon Balderston, ‘The genesis of Edward Salter aetatis 6’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. X, 2000, pp. 175–205 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2000 THE GENESIS OF EDWARD SALTER AETATIS 6 GORDON BALDERSTON ichael Rysbrack’s painted terracotta bust of and the rest of his fortune to Thomas Salter, his son- MEdward Salter aetatis (Fig. ) was acquired in-law; to his own son, William, he left just one by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in February shilling. Just over a year later, Salter commissioned after two hundred and forty years in the possession of from Rysbrack a portrait of his own heir, his six-year- the sitter’s family and descendants . The left- and old son Edward. What prompted Thomas Salter to right-hand sides of the integrally-modelled plinth are choose Rysbrack is not documented, but this article clearly signed by Rysbrack and inscribed with the will demonstrate that Thomas Salter had connections sitter’s name and age in . Yet the existence of the with friends, associates and clients of Rysbrack (John bust was unknown outside the family until , Wootton, Francis Hayman and Sir Thomas Reade), when the art-historical significance of Edward Salter each one of whom could have occasioned the was recognised for the first time, by the present writer. commission of Edward Salter aetatis in . Fortunately, sufficient genealogical details were Thomas Salter ( – ) was christened in St. preserved in Edward Salter’s bible and in Sir Ralph Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on May , the Bigland’s pedigree of to make it possible to eldest child of Edward Salter and Ann Peach . He deliver his father and his maternal grandfather from was educated at Westminster School from until obscurity and to reveal them as previously-unknown , when he was elected Student of Christ Church, patrons of Rysbrack and John Wootton. Oxford; he graduated in . On October , Edward’s father was Thomas Salter, a clerk in the in St. George’s Chapel at Hyde Park Corner, Thomas Lord Steward’s office at St. James’s Palace; he had Salter married Ann Williams , daughter of Roger been appointed in October , just as Kent’s newly- Williams, a friend of his father’s. She gave birth to built library for Queen Caroline was being furnished nine children, but only Edward (portrayed by with marble busts by Rysbrack of kings, queens and Rysbrack), Henrietta, Margaret Ann and Philippa princes of England . The Salter family lived directly seem to have survived childhood . The newly-wed opposite the palace in Cleveland Row. Edward’s couple moved into a house in Cleveland Row, maternal grandfather, Roger Williams, ran a coffee opposite St. James’s Palace, where they lived until house just around the corner at St. James’s Street, , by which time they also had lodgings at which was frequented by James Gibbs, Alexander Hampton Court Palace . Their house ‘against St. Pope and John Gay (all of whom were portrayed by James’s Stables’ was on the east corner with Russell Rysbrack ). Roger Williams owned paintings by John Court and the third house from St. James’s Street . Wootton and his long involvement with horseracing Roger Williams’s coffee house was the third house up at Newmarket suggests that he knew the painter well. from the corner with Cleveland Row (part of the When Williams died in January he left all his highway running between Charing Cross and Hyde pictures by Wootton to the nd Earl of Godolphin, Park). The positions of their houses is shown most THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME X THE GENESIS OF EDWARD SALTER AETATIS Fig. Michael Rysbrack, Edward Salter aetatis , , painted terracotta. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford . THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME X THE GENESIS OF EDWARD SALTER AETATIS Fig. Richard Horwood, Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster, the Borough of Southwark, and Parts adjoining shewing every House , sheet B (detail), published January . By permisssion of The British Library (Maps, . E. ). clearly on a map published by Richard Horwood in Officers of the Board attended the king wherever he the s (Fig. ) . lodged and had offices in all the royal palaces . The Thomas Salter was appointed to the Royal Board of Green Cloth – invariably spelt Greencloth Household at St. James’s Palace in October as in contemporary manuscripts – comprised the Lord ‘Clerk of the Green Cloth, in room of the late Mr. Steward, Treasurer, Comptroller, Cofferer, Master (a Morrison’ . Strictly speaking, he was one of four sinecure), four Principal Clerks and four Clerks to Under Clerks of the Board of Green Cloth working these Clerks, also known as Under Clerks. The for the four Principal Clerks. He remained at this Cofferer and the four Principal Clerks, assisted by level until his death on September , by which their Under Clerks, undertook the daily business of time he was the most senior of the Under Clerks; running and providing for the king’s household . obituaries refer to him as ‘Senior Clerk to the Board The Principal Clerks were appointed by royal warrant, of Green Cloth’ . The Board of Green Cloth was in but the procedure for electing their Under Clerks is charge of the domestic, financial and judicial not recorded. It is clear, however, that all eight Clerks administration of the Royal Household (as opposed to valued their appointments and that they held them the court, which was run by the Lord Chamberlain) . for life. Three of the Principal Clerks appointed by THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME X THE GENESIS OF EDWARD SALTER AETATIS George II on July – Sir Thomas Reade, Sir Thomas Wynne and Sir Thomas Hales – were still in office in , when Thomas Salter’s six-year-old son sat for Rysbrack, and the fourth Clerk, Walter Cary or Carey, had held his office since April (when he replaced Robert Bristow) ; in the same period, six Cofferers were appointed . Thomas’s father, Edward Salter, had worked in the Royal Household since , but, as he died five years before Thomas joined the Board of Green Cloth, he cannot have had any direct influence over the appointment of his son. Edward Salter had been Clerk to the Clerk of the Spicery since and a Keeper of the Council Chamber since , positions which he held until his death on October – ‘ Oct. Mr. Edward Salter , Chamber-keeper to the Privy Council, and Deputy Clerk of his Majesty’s Spicery’ . Such long-term service would have enabled him to establish many useful connections within the Royal Household and he may well have entrusted Roger Williams, one of his executors , with the paternal role of securing for his son a position in the Royal Household . Very little is known about Williams’s Fig. Michael Rysbrack, Edward Salter aetatis , , own involvement with the Royal Household in the painted terracotta. Sotheby’s, London . s, however. He had served as one of the many Waiters to the Yeoman of the Guard since and he may have been providing wine for the king; employed by the Royal Household. In he unfortunately, the earliest evidence that he was succeeded his ailing brother, Edward, as Deputy or ‘Purveyor of Wines to his Majesty’ dates from Clerk to the Clerk of the Spicery , the position held when The Court and City Register was first many years earlier by their father. His sister’s husband, published . Whatever the particular circumstances Edward Lyde, was ‘Purveyor of Mustard and Vinegar’ of Thomas Salter’s appointment, it is striking that he and ‘of Oil, Pickle etc.’ from until . Thomas took up his position in the Board of Green Cloth at served as Secretary to the rd Duke of Marlborough, St. James’s Palace exactly one year after his marriage during the Duke’s tenure as Lord Steward ( June to Ann Williams, Roger’s daughter. The available – January ) and, probably in connection evidence, scant as it is, suggests that Roger Williams with this role, he was appointed Youngest Yeoman of was instrumental in securing for his twenty-four-year- the Accompting House on February ; this old son-in-law a good living in the Royal Household, was the accounting office of the Lord Steward’s especially as he later marked his favour to Thomas department which served the Clerks of the Board of Salter by making him his heir in place of his son. Green Cloth. He resigned in to allow his teenage Thomas Salter held other household positions son, Edward – portrayed by Rysbrack in (Fig. ) concurrently and had family connections with others – to become Second Yeoman on April . THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME X THE GENESIS OF EDWARD SALTER AETATIS Less is known about Thomas Salter’s other St. James’s Coffee House , a Whig haunt, and next activities and he should not be confused with the door to it was Williams’s at number . From the Thomas Salter, brother of Sir John Salter, who was s St. James’s Street, ‘a spacious Street, with very returned as a governor of Christ’s Hospital, Newgate good Houses well inhabited by Gentry’ , had been Street, London, on April . His family had ties celebrated for its clubs, Turkish baths ( bagnios ) , with Lancaster and in he inherited from his coffee and chocolate houses, and Roger Williams had father a house in Penny Street (one of Lancaster’s established his business there by , as recorded main streets), which had been rented to John Coward, in two letters. The earlier, dated April , is from the city’s Mayor in . As Lancaster traded with John Gay ( – ), poet and dramatist, to Pope’s the West Indies in sugar, rum, tobacco, spices, cotton, friend John Caryll – ‘Mr Pope is going to Mr Jervase’s mahogany, dyestuffs and citrus fruits , the Salters where Mr Addison is sitting for his picture.