Notes & Queries
Miles Barton, ‘Sir Richard Child of Wanstead: a Portrait Revealed’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xIX, 2011, pp. 184–85
Eileen Harris, ‘The Right Wright versus The Wrong Wrights’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xIX, 2011, pp. 186–189
Selby Whittingham, ‘The Early History of the Hardwick Dynasty of Architects’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xIX, 2011, pp. 190–91
text © the authors 2011 SIR RICHARD CHILD OF WANSTEAD: A PORTRAIT REVEALED
MILES BARTON
orn as he was into a family of significant wealth, Richard succeeded to the baronetcy and the family Bit is surprising that the only representations estate of Wanstead Manor. Given the apparent age of commonly known of Richard Child, first Earl of the sitter, together with the style of wig and clothes, we Tylney ( – ) are those within the conversation can propose that the present portrait was completed pieces of Hogarth and Nollekens. It is fair to assume c. , not long after his significant inheritance. that the man behind the building of such a startlingly Jonathan Richardson Sr., ( – ) has been modern edifice at Wanstead, born to ‘a merchant described as ‘the ablest of the painters who came to most sordidly avaricious’ who was painted by John prominence during the last decade of Kneller’s life Riley, would have succumbed to the simple vanity and who flourished after his death’. Trained under of sitting for a portrait a number of times during his the portrait painter John Riley, he rose from a humble life. However the portrait considered here, by the family of weavers to become one of the most popular great eighteenth-century artist Jonathan Richardson and influential portrait painters in England during the Sr., emerged only recently and represents not only first half of the eighteenth century. His bold approach the earliest likeness of Child, being painted before was published in three treatises on painting that called his elevation to the peerage in , but is seemingly for imagination and characterisation in portraiture the only individual portrait currently known. rather than a mere mechanical reproduction of The well documented plight of the Tylney wealth physiognomy. meant that in when the contents of Wanstead Richardson in many ways seems an obvious Park came on the market every item was available to choice of artist for young Sir Richard with his newly the highest bidder without restriction. Within the acquired status. The association with Riley, via his pages of the simply arranged catalogue, there lurk a father’s portrait, would encourage the patronage of large number of plainly described family portraits. his obvious successor, and Richardson’s quickly Unnamed, perhaps deliberately for family reasons gained recognition and status, together with the born out of shame or embarrassment, or perhaps obvious financial merits this brought, maybe in purely because of the speed of cataloguing by the some way reflected the young baronet’s own auctioneers, these have gone on to represent tantalising background. And perhaps, as was to become conundrums for historians many years later. apparent with the building of the vast neo-Palladian Richard Child was the youngest son of Sir Josiah mansion at Wanstead, Sir Richard favoured a native Child ( – ) and his third wife Emma Barnard. born artist whose approach represented something In Richard married Dorothy Glynne, daughter new and distinctly different, standing out from his of John Glynne and Dorothy Tylney, daughter of foreign born rivals. Either way, this remarkably Francis Tylney of Tylney Hall, Hampshire. Soon fresh and lively portrait represents a confident and afterwards on the death of his half-brother Josiah, assured approach both in handling of paint and
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIX SIR RICHARD CHILD OF WANSTEAD : A PORTRAIT REVEALED
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to Peter Brown at Fairfax House, York for sharing his views and advice.
NOTES The Tylney family were depicted in two major ‘conversation pieces’, one by Joseph Francis Nollekens in which is now at Fairfax House, York, and another by William Hogarth c. now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Some doubt must be cast on two further paintings by Nollekens, purporting to depict Earl Tylney at an informal musical gathering at Wanstead, where the architectural surroundings appear not to correspond with the mansion; one is at Longleat House and another recorded on the art market in : Heinz archive, National Portrait Gallery. G. de la Bedoyere (ed.), The Diary of John Evelyn , Fig. . Jonathan Richardson Sr: ‘Sir Richard Child (Woodbridge, , p. ). of Wanstead’ c. , oil on canvas, by inches. National Portrait Gallery attribute it to Riley, NPG Private collection . . The Heinz archive have a photograph from of a gentleman stated to be by Kneller of Child when expression of character that is Richardson working Viscount Castlemaine. The present whereabouts of at his best. this portrait is unknown but various factors make This is almost certainly the portrait listed in the this not possible, notably the age and attire of the Wanstead auction catalogue for Day , lot , as sitter. British Library, SC (auction particulars for Richardson – A portrait of a Gentleman in blue . To Wanstead House, June, ). date its whereabouts after the sale are unknown until R. Strong, (ed.), The British Portrait (Woodbridge, it appeared on the London art market in late as ), p. . a follower of Michael Dahl and having belonged to Conversation with Wilkins & Wilkins art dealers. Richard Child, but further enquiries on this point The business has now ceased trading and after moving premises some original stock records have have proved unsuccessful. An inscription on the gone missing. It is possible it was purchased at a canvas stretcher reads ‘Rt. Hon. Earl of Tilney by provincial auctioneer, though to date this has not Kneller’ and a Hamptons repository label indicates been ascertained. that it was in storage prior to the Second World On th November an incendiary bomb hit War. The painting, having been restored early in the Hamptons Pall Mall premises destroying the th century and then cleaned in , has passed building and presumably all the contents. through two private collections in the last ten years, only recently correctly being attributed to Richardson. It is hoped that more information regarding the background of this significant portrait may yet come to light.
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIX THE RIGHT WRIGHT VS THE WRONG WRIGHTS
EILEEN HARRIS
he bicentenary of the birth of Thomas Wright Wright’s speciality: a speciality which he developed Tof Durham ( – ), amateur astronomer, whilst apprentice and probably successor to John architect and landscape gardener, is a suitable Rowley ( c. – ) who made an important orrery occasion to distinguish the ‘right’ Wright from the in – for his patron, Charles Boyle, fourth Earl of several ‘wrong’ Wrights; to dispel the falsehoods that Orrery after whom the instrument is named. Rowley’s the confounding of names has fathered upon him, orrery was based on an astronomical model by the and to have a good look into his face. horologist, George Graham ( – ), who lived Thomas Wright was a fairly common name in the above Wright’s shop in Fleet Street. eighteenth century; contemporary namesakes include The nineteen-year-old Wright of Durham entered a book collector whose library was sold in , a this close-knit London circle in the summer of publisher active c. – , a bookseller at the Bible as a journeyman ‘Makeing Mathematical Instruments in Exeter-Exchange c. (possibly one and the first with Mr Heath and then for Mr Sysson’. same person), a surveyor who laid out Lincoln’s Inn Having recently been apprenticed, albeit unhappily, Fields in , the author of Antiquities of Halifax, to a clockmaker in Bishop Auckland, one Brian , a Dissenting Minister of Bristol in , and a member of the Horn Lodge of Freemasons at Westminster in who has been mistakenly identified with Wright of Durham despite the fact that the latter was only fourteen at the time. Wright’s membership in the burgeoning fraternity, though not unlikely, remains unproven. Nevertheless, mumbo- jumbo mongers remain resolutely determined to make him a freemason – if only by association. Their efforts have added nothing of any significance to our knowledge or understanding of his work. The most notable, and certainly the most germane of Wright’s namesakes was Thomas Wright (c. – ) mathematical instrument maker to George II as Prince of Wales from and then as king from to when he retired from his business at the ‘Orrery & Globe next the Globe & Marlborough Head Tavern in Fleet Street’. Orreries, Fig. . Trade card of Thomas Wright, as his trade card of ‘ ’ (Fig. ) indicates, were Mathematical Instrument Maker, .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIX THE RIGHT WRIGHT VS THE WRONG WRIGHTS
Fig. . Thomas Wright of Durham, ‘Edinburgh Almanack Fig. . Thomas Frye, ‘Mr Thomas Wright’, ’, unpublished copper plate, Badminton Archives. mezzotint, signed and dated .
Stobart, he would have been interested in meeting he shared with other eighteenth-century writers on the celebrated George Graham, then master of the astronomy like William Derham and William Clock workers Company, who was ‘on very close Whiston. It is not surprising, therefore, that a ‘grand terms’ with his employer, Jonathan Sisson, and was a orrery’ placed on a chequer-board floor symbolizing neighbour of Thomas Wright the instrument maker. the diversity of the Creation – not, as supposed, a He would certainly have been aware of – if not directly freemasonic pavement – should occupy centre stage involved in – the latest improvements to the orrery. of the unpublished almanac designed by him in Brief though it was, his London experience was / and engraved in . (Fig. ) An orrery also both stimulating and inspiring. On his return to featured in the half-length portrait of him which hung Sunderland in the winter of he promptly in the dining room of his house at Byers Green. printed ‘a new advertisement for selling all sorts of This was probably a self portrait like the one on the Mathematical Instruments ec’ – and had ‘a curious almanac and of similar date, i.e. early s. Along sign of ye Creation Painted over his Door.’ His with the other paintings in the room, mostly of namesake’s ‘grand orrery’ representing the movements astronomical subjects, it was in the possession of his of all the heavenly bodies in the solar system around biographer, George Allan of Darlington, in and the sun and embellished with an armillary hemisphere has not been traced since. made a particularly strong impression on him both as The mezzotint of ‘Mr Thomas Wright’ by Thomas a visual aid to an understanding of the solar system Frye dated depicts a mature man in his fifties; and as a display of the magnificence of the Creation. yet it is generally thought to be Thomas Wright of The connection between astronomy and the Durham, who was twenty-six at the time. (Fig. ) This Creation, between the material and the moral view certainly is not the ‘right’ Wright. But could it be the of the universe was the constant, almost obsessive, mathematical instrument maker? Unfortunately, the concern of Wright’s cosmological work; a concern portrait has no attributes that identify the sitter. Apart
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIX THE RIGHT WRIGHT VS THE WRONG WRIGHTS
Fig. . George Allen, `Thomas Wright’, engraving, signed Fig. . Portrait of Thomas Wright, copy after the engraving G. Allen Pinxit, P. Fourdrinier Scul., undated, c. . by P. Fourdrinier made for Gentleman’s Magazine , . from the self-portrait aged on the unpublished Allen and Wright remained close friends; twenty years almanac, the only definitive portrait of ‘Thomas later, in , Allen recommended the ‘ingenious’ Wright. Phil: Nat: Et. Mat: Prof:’ was engraved by Wright as a landscape painter to the diplomat and Paul Fourdrinier ( – ) who was responsible writer, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams ( – ), for the plates in most of Wright’s astronomical who employed him to improve his house and garden publications, including his Original Theory of , at Coldbrook in Monmouthshire. George Allen was from a painting by the little known ‘Face Painter’, among the subscribers to Wright’s Clavis Coelestis , George Allen. (Fig. ) George Allan of Darlington as were the Duke and Duchess of Kent and their ( – ), who is generally credited with the extended family: the Duke of Portland, Lord Limerick, portrait, would have been only six years old in the Hon. Philip Yorke, Jemima, Marchioness Grey, when it was published as a frontispiece to Wright’s Lord Glenorchy and others. Clavis Coelestis. Wright can be credited with the composition of Wright may have had the idea of including a Allen’s portrait of him: a circular medallion from portrait of himself in Clavis Coelestis , his first book behind which there emerges an unusual elongated or on theoretical astronomy, as early as when he oval ouroborus (tail-eating serpent) emblematic of published ‘...Proposals for Printing ... by the Milky Way. The more familiar circular ouroborus Subscription.’ As he was then spending a great deal – representing eternity, unity, infinity, self-sufficiency of time with the first Duke and Duchess of Kent at – was used by Wright to frame his plates of the solar Wrest, teaching ‘ye Young Ladies Geometry etc.’ , it system in The Use of the Globes , (pl. I), , his can safely be assumed that it was the Duke ( – ) ‘Synopsis of the Universe’ explained in Clavis who recommended George Allen as a portraitist, Coelestis , and in his Original Theory , pl. II, . having employed him himself from to paint Vain as he was, he would never have used it to frame various members of his family at Wrest. Thereafter his portrait, for that would have been tantamount to
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIX THE RIGHT WRIGHT VS THE WRONG WRIGHTS presenting himself as a microcosm. The profile E. Hughes, ‘The Early Journal of Thomas Wright of portrait that accompanies George Allan of Darlington’s Durham’, Annals of Science , () ( ), p. . Thomas ‘Sketch of the Character of Mr Thomas Wright ...’, Heath, mathematical instrument maker (fl. – , at the Hercules & Globe next the Fountain Tavern published in the Gentleman’s Magazine in in the Strand; Jonathan Sisson ( ?– ), (Fig. ), seven years after Wright’s death, is a mathematical instrument maker to Frederick, Prince misrepresented copy of Fourdrinier’s engraving of of Wales from , at the Sphere, corner of George Allen’s painting with the regular circular Beaufort Buildings in the Strand. Thomas Heath medallion (which Wright might well have equated and Thomas Wright, mathematical instrument maker, were subscribers to Wright of Durham’s with the sun) reduced to a meaningless oval that Clavis Pannautici ( ), ‘a Mathematical would fit the smaller page, the inscription – incorrectly Instrument ... describing the Lunar Theory and transcribed – removed from the medallion itself and the motion of the Tides.’ used instead as a heading, and the lively ouroubus Hughes, loc. cit . , p. . brought under control to serve as a frame. On this subject see Michael Hoskin and David M. Without the distraction of the wrong Wrights, Knight’s introduction to the facsimile reprint of Wright’s Original Theory (London, ), p. . the true history of Thomas Wright of Durham may Preston, op. cit ., p. . now proceed. The copper plate, engraved by Richard Cooper in Edinburgh, is now in the archive at Badminton House. Wright gave a full account of his fruitless efforts to get it published in his ‘Early Journal’, NOTES Hughes, loc. cit. , pp. – , . This is the subject of a forthcoming article by the author. BL, Add MS , ff. –. ‘Mr Wright’s Description of his Villa at Byer’s Minutes of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Green’, Gentleman’s Magazine (March ), p. . England – (London, ), p. ; Andrew William Roberts, ‘George Allen’, letter to the editor, Baker, ‘Thomas Wright: The Druids and Times Literary Supplement , June . This is the Sophisticated Ladies’ (n.d., c. –), most complete account of Allen in print. Roberts www.imaginingstaffordshire.orgb.uk/shug/. ( – ) was a prolific writer particularly about Judith Kay Preston, ‘Elysian Fields, Pindaric eighteenth-century painters. Shades and A Myriad Inchanting Mansions’: Hughes, loc. cit ., p. . Wright’s first title for Clavis The Landscapes of Thomas Wright ( – ), Coelestis was ‘Physical and Mathematical Elements unpublished master’s dissertation, University of of Astronomy, or the Doctrine of the Sphere being a Bristol, , p. ; Judy Preston ‘A Polymath in synopsis of the Universe, or the visible World Arcadia: Thomas Wright ( – )’, Garden epitomiz’d ...’ It was advertised in his Use of the History , () ( ), p. . Paul Elliott and Globes , as ‘Now in the Gravers Hands and will Stephen Daniels, ‘The ‘School of true, useful and speedily be published.’ universal science.’Freemasonry, natural philosophy Hughes, ibid . and scientific culture in eighteenth-century England’, Yale University. Lewis Walpole Library, Hanbury British Journal for the History of Science , (), Williams Correspondence, CHW - and June , p. . CHW -. Gloria Clifton, Directory of Britihh Scientific F.A. Paneth, Chemistry and beyond (New York, Instrument Makers – (London, ), p. . ), pp. – ; Preston, loc.cit . Preston was Henry C. King and John R. Millburn, Geared to the concerned only with the conventional circular stars. The evolution of planetariums, orreries, and ouroborus mistakenly believing it to have been astronomical clocks (Toronto, ), pp. – ; Wright’s choice; neither she nor Paneth realized John R. Millburn, ‘Benjamin Martin and the that the Gentleman’s Magazine portrait of was a development of the Orrery’, The British Journal for later, debased copy of the earlier portrait by Allen. the history of science ( ) ( ), pp. – .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIX THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE HARDWICK DYNASTY OF ARCHITECTS
SELBY WHITTINGHAM
he careers of the Hardwick architects are His son, Thomas II ( – ), was also a Tsummarised by Sir Howard Colvin in his stonemason. He was based at New Brentford, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects. though houses at Isleworth were still owned by However their builder antecedents have remained Philip in , and was quite prosperous. He was uncertain until recent findings. These have been the builder in of St Lawrence, New Brentford, partly recorded in by Celia Cotton and Carolyn designed by Boulton Manwaring, now shamefully Hammond . neglected. In – he was engaged on works at Syon I was led to an interest in the family by the fact House for the Adam brothers. In he married a that Philip Hardwick ( – ) was one Methodist follower of Charles Wesley (who officiated of J.M.W.Turner’s executors, he complaining of the at the wedding), Sarah Witham, and they produced confusions in Turner’s will relating to the Royal Thomas III ( – ), the architect. Thomas III in Academy, of which Hardwick was Treasurer. In married at Credenhill, Herefordshire, Elizabeth Walter Thornbury’s biography of Turner little Hardwick, and they produced Philip, the father of reference is made to Philip, who was among those Philip Charles ( – ). who evidently failed to co-operate with the author. Elizabeth was presumably a cousin, maybe a This was a pity, as it was to the Hardwicks more than granddaughter of Joseph, brother of Thomas I. to anyone else that Turner owed his great interest in At any rate connections with Herefordshire were architecture, preferably classical. Turner would have maintained, as commissions for Thomas III and first met them when he stayed with his uncle at New Philip attest. In his will of Thomas II mentioned Brentford c. . Thomas Hardwick of Kensington, surgeon. This The family tradition has been that it came from Thomas ( – ) was his first cousin, Master of Herefordshire gentry. Research shows that Thomas I the Society of Apothecaries in , his portrait ( – ) was born at Weston-under-Penyard, a hanging in its hall. He lived at (formerly ) Young member of a family of yeomen long established there. Street, Kensington Square, from . In – he In (?) his settlement certificate at Isleworth refronted it. No architect has been discovered, and described him as ‘from Weston’. He was a we may wonder if the services of Thomas III were ‘stonecutter’ or ‘stonemason’. In he acquired called upon. The apothecary made his will in , property at New Brentford High Street near which shows his continuing family connections with Brentford Bridge. The Hardwick yard there had Herefordshire and Monmouthshire. passed to a mason called Loveless by , when a Thomas III was in Rome with Turner’s future print after a painting by Henry Sexton was published. friend, John Soane, whom he later visited at The two adjacent houses built by the Hardwicks Pitzhanger Manor, where John Haverfield from the survived until the s. Turner circle of Brentford and Kew, comprising also
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIX THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE HARDWICK DYNASTY OF ARCHITECTS the Cobb gardeners, advised on the garden. His will, May , was proved May in the Descendants preserve the passports and other Commissary Court of London. This left to his wife documents of Philip, and portraits of Thomas III Jane the copyhold messuage with yard and wharf at Church Row, Isleworth, his dwelling house (and and probably also of Thomas II. shop) at New Brentford and £ p.a., and then to his son Thomas with remainder to the children of his brother Joseph Hardwick ( – , buried at Credenhill?). At Isleworth he was overseer of the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS poor , churchwarden –, on committee I am indebted principally to Dr Tim Marshall, who of the charity school – , for which he did work . has researched the Isleworth and Brentford records. London Metropolitan Records, Acc/ / / , Others who have helped include Hermione with plan. ( year lease from Christopher Clitherow Hobhouse, Mrs A.P.C.Lyons, Mark Rittner, of Boston Manor, June ). See also Survey of Mrs Janet Glaisher, The Society of Apothecaries, Property in New Brentford, ; Tithe map of New Mrs Carolyn Hammond, Peter Murray, Richard Brentford ( ,) plots –. Reproduced in Whittingham, op.cit ., p. . Dawnay and Paul Johnson. Baptised at Isleworth, February ; buried, September , at St Lawrence, New Brentford, where the monument by J.J.P. Kendrick to Thomas III and other Hardwicks is once again placed. NOTES Map of Isleworth, surveyed by W.T. Warren / , Brentford High Street Project, updated , – ( houses and yards between www.bhsproject.co.uk/families_hardwick.shtml . the London Apprentice and Orange Tree public This is based on Selby Whittingham, Brentford to houses). Turner made a watercolour of the church Oxford: J.M.W.Turner’s early career under the for Thomas III, untraced. guardianship of his uncle J.M.W.Marshall Will, June , proved PCC September (J.M.W.Turner, R.A., Publications, London, ). (National Archives, PROB / / ). Burke’s Landed Gentry ( ), ‘Hardwick of Survey of London , XLII, Southern Kensington: Brentford’, is incorrect. Kensington Square to Earls Court ( ), p. . ‘J M W Turner – connections with Brentford,’ Will, December , pr. PCC April . Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society His portrait was presented to the Society of Journal, ( ), pp. – . Apothecaries, to which he was admitted on Baptised at Weston under Penyard, April , November after serving an apprenticeship son of John and Mary Hardwick. to an apothecary at Tewkesbury, October , London Metropolitan Archives, Isleworth parish by his daughter-in-law. records, settlement certificate, probably . Whittingham, op.cit ., p. .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIX