In the picture - the Beaumont Family Portrait, by George Romney

It has long been recognised that some information provided about this picture was wrong.

1. The history of the picture

Family members visited George Romney's studio starting with one visit in 1776. Sittings took place separately, mainly in 1777 and 1778, continuing into 1779. Work on it may have continued well after this because the final payment for it was not until Sept. 1782.  It was "Mr Beaumont" (RHB presumably) who paid Romney the final instalment, of £194.

The picture was then presumably sent to Whitley Hall where it may have remained for many years, certainly until after RHB died, which was in 1810. He was in effect succeeded by his great nephew and namesake Richard Henry Beaumont 1805-1857 who actually lived at Clarence Lodge, Roehampton in SW London, and/or Brighton. He in turn left Whitley to his cousin and godson Henry Frederick Beaumont ("HFB") 1833-1913, who I believe lived mainly in London or at Irnham Hall, Lincolnshire, moving to Ascot later in his life.

At some stage a full-scale copy of the picture was made. See below.

Some time before 1904 HFB provided some inaccurate information about the group portrait which was published that year by Humphry Ward and W. Roberts in their detailed "Essay" on Romney and catalogue of his work.

Ward and Roberts state that the picture was still at Whitley (but they do not say that HFB told them that), and it seems unlikely that they saw it.

The picture was then lent to the Royal Academy and exhibited (no.147) in 1910. I have not seen the catalogue notes used at that time but I think they were still based on what HFB had said.

HFB died in 1913. He had two sons, the elder being Henry Ralph Beaumont 1865-1948, who sold the picture in 1919 to the National Gallery for £13,000 and indeed completed the sale of Whitley in the 1920s.

In a short article in the Burlington Magazine in 1919 some of the misinformation was corrected but for some reason that article has remained somewhat buried and has not effectively prevented dissemination of the older wrong information.

After being with the National Gallery for some years - as No. 3400 - the picture is now with the Tate, apparently in store. It still has the same number.

It is a large oil on canvas measuring almost 3 metres wide and 2 metres high. I do wonder if RHB wrote on the back of the frame as he did with some of his other pictures.

Here is the picture again .....

2. The people in (and not in) the picture (speaking as at 1777)

The picture takes about five years to be completed, starting this year (1777). Mrs Elizabeth Beaumont is widowed. She has three surviving sons and a married daughter.

(I make some half-educated guesses.....)

Mrs B has learned that her youngest son John has become the father of a son by a girl to whom he is not married. There is some unhappiness here, so it may do no harm to have a family picture to help build an impression of unity.

The eldest son, Richard Henry, is 29. He has finished Oxford and is interested in scholarly and antiquarian pursuits. In the picture he is the second from left. We call him "RHB". *

The second son, Charles, died in London three years ago (July 1774), at the age of 24. He was on the way to becoming a lawyer. He is depicted in the portrait on the easel at right. (It does not follow from this that there actually is, or ever was, such a portrait) **.

The third son, Thomas, is shown at left in military uniform. Aged about 26, he is in the 4th Dragoons, having bought his promotion to Lieutenant about 2 years ago.

The youngest son, John, is 25. He was in the 29th Regiment, but he has not remained in the army. He is the one who has a new-born son but has not yet married.  Significantly, although he will marry before the picture is finished, his wife will not be included in it (information that I have, carries no implication that the girl he marries is, or is not, the mother of the infant). John is shown centre, leaning on the chair. *

The daughter, Elizabeth, shown seated, is aged 24. Three years ago, within a few days of her 21st birthday, she married the Anglo-Irish army officer George Bernard, who is 8 or 9 years her senior and was then already a Captain in the Inishkilling Dragoons.*** He still has that rank. He will be included in the portrait, standing on the right hand side, slightly separate from the Beaumonts.* It almost looks as though including him was a late decision, and indeed there exists a sketch of it in which he is not shown.

(* Alex Kidson reasons that Captain Bernard is the one leaning on the chair, and that the one on the right is John. Another view was that RHB is the one leaning on the chair, and that John is standing next to Thomas. But I believe that what HFB told Ward & Roberts should be entirely disregarded!)

(** though as it happens, there is such a portrait. I have this information from Alex Kidson, who is far from convinced it is Charles. So if I'm wrong, I'm responsible!!)

(*** Elizabeth & George were married in York in October 1774. I think it likely that the Beaumonts had a house there. Can anyone tell me if the Inishkilling Dragoons were based at York then?)

3. Some extra notes

Richard Henry Beaumont 1749-1810 ("RHB")

I have seen much information about him and much that he wrote. I think he was a snob but am sure he was a serious and accurate antiquary and genealogist. Of the many mistakes, I don't think many were made by RHB.

I suspect he was a disaster as an estate manager.

In my family there is another picture of RHB, shown at least twenty years older. I wrote a piece recently about it. I think this one may have been in his sister's house. It is not to be confused with another Romney portrait of him, which appears to have remained with the Whitley Beaumont family and was eventually owned by one of HFB's daughters, Miss Octavia Beaumont, of Drayton Gardens, London SW. She sold it at Christie's in 1932, when I understand the then Lord Allendale bought it.

John Beaumont (1752-1820)

John Beaumont had in fact had a military role. He had been made up from Ensign to Lieutenant, 29th Regt of Foot, in 1774 (London Gazette 5 April 1774) and thus might have been portrayed in uniform, but I don't think he was still in the army (see footnote). The Family Tree (based on the work of RHB) says that John's son - Charles Richard Beaumont - was born on 22 May 1777 and that John married a woman called Sarah Butler - at Lambeth - the following year. This was all going on when the sittings with Romney were taking place, so John's wife might be the Mrs Beaumont who once or twice attended Romney's studio. Or that could, as suggested by various writers, mean Mrs Bernard. Or equally it could mean the old lady.

I have not found mentions of John Beaumont's marriage to Sarah Butler in the newspapers, Gentleman's Magazine, etc.. Does anyone know of any parish register record of it? John and Sarah had two legitimate daughters born before the picture was delivered.

Ultimately it seems that RHB, the custodian of the family genealogy, did not try to fudge things much.

Thomas Beaumont 1751-1782

Experts writing about the group portrait seem not to have followed up about my picture of Thomas (1751-1782), despite its existence being published in Country Life in 1955.

Several writers have given themselves the impression that Thomas was not commissioned until after the Romney family group was painted. This is because they confuse him with a cousin called Thomas Richard Beaumont (1758-1829) who did indeed not begin a military career till 1780. This error is made for example in [Sir] Martin Davies' 1946 National Gallery Catalogue, in Mr Rodway's letter to Country Life in 1955, in a letter from a Brigadier Bullock to Country Life at that time, and again in a letter from the National Army Museum to Mrs Margaret Shepherd dated 10 March 1965.

However, Thomas Beaumont (1751-1782) was a Cornet from 1769 in the 4th Regiment of Dragoons and a Lieutenant from 1772 (Scots Magazine 1 August 1769, 1 January 1772; London Gazette Issue 11216 January 1772, and 11389 September 1773).

On the other hand Thomas Richard Beaumont (1758-1829) was a cornet in the 22nd Light Dragoons from 1780. Further confusion may have resulted from the fact that George Bernard seems to have been his superior officer (several ranks above) in the 22nd Dragoons, since it was from there that he was promoted in late 1782.

So, Thomas (1751-1782) was a Lieutenant (4th Dragoons) throughout the whole period the painting was in progress. He died at Whitley on 10 November 1782.

George Bernard c.1749-1820

When he married Elizabeth in 1774 he was a Captain in the 6th (or Inishkilling [Enniskillen]) Dragoons, having been a Lieutenant in that unit five years earlier. Moving around other units he still had the rank of Captain until 1782, and is mentioned as being promoted from Captain, 22nd Dragoons (in which Thomas Richard Beaumont was then a Cornet), to Major, 20th Light Dragoons, in late 1782 (London Gazette), then Lt-Col a year later when his unit was the 86th Regiment of Foot. From 1786 for three years he was Lieutenant-Governor of Kinsale and Charles Fort in SW Ireland, and then he was apparently on half pay for a while. Then, back in Yorkshire in late 1793 he raised the 84th Regiment of Foot, this being when RHB was High Sheriff and Rev. Thomas Beaumont was Chaplain (see my earlier notes). Bernard then commanded the 84th in Holland in 1794 and was promoted to full Colonel. It would seem that by 1803 he may have been taking retirement and was made progressively Major-, Lieutenant-, and full General.

In the sources, his surname often appears as "Barnard."

(A report in April 1783 has Major Bernard being appointed Lt-Col. of the 86th, "now stationed at York," and "Master of the Jewel Office" (Leeds Intelligencer)).

Lots of suggestions have been made about the Beaumont group picture being altered to show his new uniform after some promotion or other. The picture may indeed have been still in Romney's studio when Bernard was promoted to Lt-Colonel.

George and Elizabeth Bernard had no children. But he is known to have had a daughter by another woman, mentioned in his will or codicils which he made many years after the Beaumont painting was done. See my recent notes about the picture of RHB.

The Ormesby copy of the family group portrait

The full size copy (mentioned above) went to the Pennyman family of Ormesby Hall, one of whom in 1882 married a daughter of HFB.

I do not know when the copy was done, or why, or who did it, or when it went to Ormesby.

Ormesby Hall is now in the care of the National Trust, whose online picture catalogue gives Thomas the middle name William. Can someone check the "Leeds Mercury" report of his death? I have a note that it gives him that middle name, but is it right? I don't think he had any middle name. None is assigned to him in the report of his death in the "Leeds Intelligencer" of 19 Nov. 1782.

H.F. Beaumont's notes on the subjects of the picture

HFB is quoted by Ward & Roberts (1904) as saying that the subjects from left to right are:- RHB, Charles, George Bernard, Elizabeth, and Thomas, and that the "portrait within a portrait" is another one of RHB. I think this is completely wrong. One factor in this is that the identification of Thomas on the left is really quite certain. Another is that the figure on the right is missing from an early sketch. A third is that HFB omits John entirely, though of all of them he was most closely connected to John, in that he had inherited Whitley (and the Romney picture) from John's grandson. So I have preferred to discard HFB's notes entirely and start afresh.

This note made 7 March 2018.
Revised 11/12 and 19 March 2018
With acknowledgments and further thanks to Alex Kidson
Note added 22 April 2020 with reference to Leeds Intelligencer 19 Nov. 1782.

This footnote added 29-30 Nov. 2020. As to John Beaumont's military career. His Regiment, the 29th, was at Boston, Mass., in 1769 and 1770, remaining in America for some time, then returning to England. There is evidence that John was at Whitley Hall in July 1773. Perhaps he was then on leave. From the 1774 "Army List," (p.83) it would appear he did not join the Regiment until November 1770; so he may never have gone to America.  It would have been an interesting period of service, catching him up in the events of the "Boston Massacre" of March 1770, after which his immediately superior officer James Bassett, and a Captain Preston, were jailed and tried.  The 29th was sent to Canada early in 1776. Whether John Beaumont went with them then seems unlikely, since his son is supposed to have been born in May 1777, presumably in London. See H.Everard, History of Thomas Farrington's Regiment. This gives general facts about the Regiment and mentions John once, as being an Ensign aged 24 in December 1773, with three years service. Since John was apparently born in 1752 he must have over-stated his age (if it is he, and I think it is!).