Wednesday 11 September 2024

Three family portraits from about 1700

Here are photos which I took with my own camera many years ago, of three portraits, in the flat of their then owner Miss Joan Barnes-Gorell, in Sloane Street, London.

Thomas Horton, c.1651-1699, of Barkisland

Capt. Richard Beaumont of Lascelles Hall (1638-1706)

Captain Richard Beaumont of Lascelles Hall & Whitley (1670-1723)

When Miss Barnes-Gorell died, she left these pictures to the National Trust, to go to Ormesby Hall.

West Yorkshire Archives (Reference WBM/141) is catalogued as - "Three photographs in an envelope marked: 'Photographs of my Family Portraits, J B G'. Notes on the back of each photograph separately read: 'Richard d.1706', 'Richard d.1723' and 'Thomas Horton' The portraits were rescued from Whitley Beaumont by Miss J Barnes-Gorrell (sic here), and have now been bequeathed to Ormesby Hall, owned by the National Trust. All three portraits had notes written on the back by R H Beaumont, died 1810."

The notes on the back in the handwriting of the antiquary R.H. Beaumont are key evidence of provenance from Whitley Hall and of correct identification of the subjects. I believe that the painter of the two Beaumonts may well have been William Beaumont "of Lepton" (born 1673), a son of the elder Richard and brother of the younger. William trained as a painter in London in the 1690s and he is thought to have been the author of a letter to Richard in 1711 which R.H.Beaumont transcribed (part of West Yorks Archives WBG/131), and on which I intend to comment separately.

This Thomas Horton was the father of Susanna, who married the younger Richard. They were parents of many children including Frances (1704-1735), who in 1723 married George Beaumont of Darton, and I am a direct descendant of them.

I have notes on all these people, and on the portraits, which are available to anyone interested.

What are in the Archive must be prints of the photos I myself took. It seems likely that Miss Barnes-Gorell's executor sent them. I believe all three original portraits are still at Ormesby Hall.

These two Beaumonts are known affectionately in my family as Happy and Grumpy (I leave it to you to work out which is which......).

(Joan was a grand-daughter of Henry Frederick Beaumont of Whitley and Ascot (d.1913)). I think Colonel Pennyman, of Ormesby Hall, was her cousin).


EMB 11 September 2024

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