First Lord of the Admiralty
The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the Royal Navy, the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs and responsible for the direction and control of Admiralty Department as well as general administration of the Naval Service of the United Kingdom, that encompassed the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines and other services. It was one of the earliest known permanent government posts. Apart from being the political head of the Royal Navy the post holder held the title of the President of the Board of Commissioners for Exercising the Office of Lord High Admiral; the office of First Lord of the Admiralty existed from 1628 until it was abolished when the Admiralty, Air Ministry, Ministry of Defence and War Office were all merged to form the new Ministry of Defence in 1964. In 1628, during the reign of Charles I, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord High Admiral of England, was assassinated and the office was placed in commission, under the control of a Board of Commissioners.
The first such First Lord of the Admiralty was Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland, appointed in 1628. The First Lord was not always a permanent member of the board until the Admiralty Department was established as an official government department in 1709 with the First Lord as its head. During most of the 17th century and the early 18th century, it was not invariable for the Admiralty to be in commission, so there are gaps in the list of First Lords, a small number of First Lords were for a time Lord High Admiral. After the Revolution, in 1690, a declaratory Act was passed, during the reign of Mary. Parliament passed the Admiralty Act, vesting in the Commissioners the powers held by the Lord High Admiral of England, and at this point became a permanent Cabinet position. The Admiralty Commission was dissolved in 1701, but was reconstituted in 1709 on the death of Prince George of Denmark, appointed Lord High Admiral; the office has been held in commission from that time onwards, except for a short period when the Duke of Clarence was Lord High Admiral.
The Board of the Admiralty comprised a number of “Lords Commissioners” headed by a First Lord. From the early 1800s the post was always held by a civilian. In 1832 First Lord Sir James Graham instituted reforms and amalgamated the Board of Admiralty and the Navy Board. By the provisions of the Admiralty Act of 1832, two Lords in committee could legalize any action of the Board. In 1868 Prime Minister, William Gladstone appointed Hugh Childers First Lord, who would introduce a new system at the Admiralty; however these changes restricted communication between the board members who were affected by these new regulations, the sittings of the Board were discontinued altogether. This situation described was further exacerbated by the disaster of HMS Captain in 1870, a poorly-designed new vessel for the navy; the responsibility and powers of the First Lord of the Admiralty were laid down by an Order in Council dated 14 January 1869, a Order made the First Lord responsible to the Sovereign and to Parliament for all the business of the Admiralty.
However, by describing the Lords of the Admiralty as the "assistants" of the First Lord, by defining their duties, this had, in fact disabled the collective power of the Board. In 1931, for the first time since 1709, the First Lord was not a member of the cabinet. In 1964, the office of First Lord of the Admiralty was abolished, the last holder being the second Earl Jellicoe, the son of Admiral of the Fleet Earl Jellicoe, the functions of the Sea Lords were transferred to the Admiralty Board, which forms part of the tri-service Defence Council of the United Kingdom. Between 1800 and 1912 included: From 1 April 1964 Elizabeth II assumed the title of Lord High Admiral. Ministerial responsibility for the Royal Navy was transferred to the newly created Secretary of State for Defence. Notes Admiralty and Marine Affairs Office, Admiralty Department, Board of Admiralty, Navy Board and Hurt Board, Transport Board, Victualling Board, Office of the Civil Lord of the Admiralty Office of the Senior Naval Lord, Office of the First Naval Lord, Office of the First Sea Lord, Office of the First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff, Office of the Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Office of the Naval Secretary, Office of the Secretary to the Admiralty, Office of the First Secretary to the Admiralty, Office of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, Office of the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty, Office of the Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty, The "Radical" First Lord, a major character, in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.
M. S. Pinafore, is Sir Joseph Henry Porter, KCB. W. S. Gilbert wrote to Arthur Sullivan he did not intend to portray the real-life First Lord, the bookseller and newsagent W. H. Smith, a Conservative, although some of the public, including Prime Minister Disraeli, identified Porter with him; the counterparts shared a known lack of naval background. It has been suggested the character was drawn on Smith's actual "Radical" predecessor of 1868–71, Hugh Childers; this article contains some text from: Vesey, Richard Sir, Naval Administration: The Constitution and Functions of the Bo
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was the title of the chief governor of Ireland from the Williamite Wars of 1690 until the Partition of Ireland in 1922. This spanned the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; the office, under its various names, was more known as the viceroy, his wife was known as the vicereine. The government of Ireland in practice was in the hands of the Lord Deputy up to the 17th century, of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Although in the Middle Ages some Lords Deputy were Irish noblemen, only men from Great Britain peers, were appointed to the office of Lord Lieutenant; the Lord Lieutenant possessed a number of overlapping roles. He was the representative of the King. Grand Master of the Order of St. PatrickPrior to the Act of Union 1800 which abolished the Irish parliament, the Lord Lieutenant formally delivered the Speech from the Throne outlining his Government's policies, his Government exercised effective control of parliament through the extensive exercise of the powers of patronage, namely the awarding of peerages and state honours.
Critics accused successive viceroys of using their patronage power as a corrupt means of controlling parliament. On one day in July 1777, Lord Buckinghamshire as Lord Lieutenant promoted 5 viscounts to earls, 7 barons to viscounts, created 18 new barons; the power of patronage was used to bribe MPs and peers into supporting the Act of Union 1800, with many of those who changed sides and supported the Union in Parliament awarded peerages and honours for doing so. The Lord Lieutenant was advised in the governance by the Irish Privy Council, a body of appointed figures and hereditary title holders, which met in the Council Chamber in Dublin Castle and on occasion in other locations; the chief constitutional figures in the viceregal court were: Chief Secretary for Ireland: From 1660 the chief administrator, but by the end of the 19th century the prime minister in the administration, with the Lord Lieutenant becoming a form of constitutional monarch. Under-Secretary for Ireland: The head of the civil service in Ireland.
Lord Justices: Three office-holders who acted in the Lord Lieutenant's stead during his absence. The Lord Justices were before 1800 the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh as Primate of All Ireland. Lords Lieutenant were appointed for no set term but served for "His/Her Majesty's pleasure"; when a ministry fell, the Lord Lieutenant was replaced by a supporter of the new ministry. Until the 16th century, Irish or Anglo-Irish noblemen such as the 8th Earl of Kildare and the 9th Earl of Kildare traditionally held the post of Justiciar or Lord Deputy. Following the plantations, noblemen from Great Britain were given the post; the last Irish Catholic to hold the position was Lord Tyrconnell from 1685–91, during the brief Catholic Ascendancy in the reign of James II, ended by the Williamite war in Ireland. Until 1767 none of the latter lived full-time in Ireland. Instead they resided in Ireland during meetings of the Irish Parliament.
However the British cabinet decided in 1765 that full-time residency should be required to enable the Lord Lieutenant to keep a full-time eye on public affairs in Ireland. In addition to the restriction that only English or British noblemen could be appointed to the viceroyalty, a further restriction following the Glorious Revolution excluded Roman Catholics, though it was the faith of the overwhelming majority on the island of Ireland, from holding the office; the office was restricted to members of the Anglican faith. The first Catholic appointed to the post since the reign of the Catholic King James II was in fact the last viceroy, Lord FitzAlan of Derwent, in April 1921, his appointment was possible because the Government of Ireland Act 1920 ended the prohibition on Catholics being appointed to the position. FitzAlan was the only Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to hold office when Ireland was partitioned into Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland; the post ebbed and flowed in importance, being used on occasion as a form of exile for prominent British politicians who had fallen afoul of the Court of St. James's or Westminster.
On other occasions it was a stepping stone to a future career. Two Lords Lieutenant, Lord Hartington and the Duke of Portland, went from Dublin Castle to 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister of Great Britain, in 1756 and 1783 respectively. By the mid-to-late 19th century the post had declined from being a powerful political office to that of being a symbolic quasi-monarchical figure who reigned, not ruled, over the Irish administration. Instead it was the Chief Secretary for Ireland who became central, with he, not the Lord Lieutenant, sitting on occasion in the British cabinet; the official residence of the Lord Lieutenant was the Viceregal Apartments in Dublin Castle, where the Viceregal Court was based. Other summer or alternative residences used by Lord Lieutenant or Lords Deputy included Abbeville in Kinsealy, Chapelizod House, in which the Lord Lieutenant lived while Dublin Castle was being rebuilt following a fire but which he left due to the building being haunted, Leixlip Castle and St. Wolstan's in Celbridge.
The Geraldine Lords Deputy, the 8th Earl of Kildare and the 9th Earl of Kildare, being native Irish, both lived in, among other locations, their castl
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, was a British nobleman who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1762 to 1763 under George III. He was arguably the last important favourite in British politics, he was the first Prime Minister from Scotland following the Acts of Union in 1707 and the first Tory to have held the post. He was elected as the first President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland when it was founded in 1780, he was born in Parliament Close, close to St Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh on 25 May 1713, the son of James Stuart, 2nd Earl of Bute, his wife, Lady Anne Campbell. He attended Eton College from midsummer 1724 to Whitsun 1730, he went on to study law at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. A close relative of the Clan Campbell, Bute succeeded to the Earldom of Bute upon the death of his father, James Stuart, 2nd Earl of Bute, in 1723, he was brought up thereafter by his maternal uncles, the 2nd Duke of Argyll and Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, 1st and only Earl of Ilay.
In August 1735, he eloped with Mary Wortley Montagu, whose parents Sir Edward and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu were slow to consent to the marriage. In 1737, he was elected a Scottish representative peer; because of his support for Argyll against Walpole, he was not re-elected in 1741. For the next several years he retired to his estates in Scotland to manage his affairs and indulge his interest in botany. In 1745, Bute moved to Westminster, where his family rented a house at Twickenham for forty-five pounds per annum, he met Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1747 at the Egham Races and became a close friend to the Prince. After the Prince's death in 1751, Bute was appointed tutor to Prince George, the new Prince of Wales. Bute arranged for the Prince and his brother Prince Edward to follow a course of lectures on natural philosophy by the itinerant lecturer Stephen Demainbray; this led to an increased interest in natural philosophy on the part of the young prince and was one in a series of events that led to the establishment of the George III Collection of natural philosophical instruments.
Furthermore, following the death of the Prince Frederick, Bute became close to his widow, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, the Dowager Princess of Wales. It was rumoured that the couple were having an affair, indeed soon after John Horne Tooke published a scandalous pamphlet alluding to a liaison between Bute and the Princess. Rumours of this affair were certainly untrue, as Bute was by all indications married, he held sincere religious beliefs against adultery. In 1780 Bute was elected as the first President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; because of the influence he had over his pupil, Bute expected to rise to political power following George's accession to the throne in 1760, but his plans were premature. It would first be necessary to remove both the incumbent Prime Minister and arguably the more powerful Secretary of State for the Southern Department; the Government of the day, buoyed by recent successes in the Seven Years' War, was popular and did well at the general election which, as was customary at the time, took place on the accession of the new monarch.
Supported by the king, Bute manoeuvred himself into power by first allying himself with Newcastle against Pitt over the latter's desire to declare war on Spain which, when defeated, precipitated Pitt's resignation and forcing Newcastle's resignation when the Prime Minister found himself in a small minority within the Government over the level of funding and direction of the war. Re-elected as a Scottish representative peer in 1760, Bute was indeed appointed the de facto Prime Minister, thus ending a long period of Whig dominance. Bute's premiership was notable for the negotiation of the Treaty of Paris which concluded the Seven Years' War. In so doing, Bute had to soften his previous stance in relation to concessions given to France, in that he agreed that the important fisheries in Newfoundland be returned to France without Britain's possession of Guadeloupe in return. After peace was concluded and the King decided that Britain's military expenditure should not exceed its pre-war levels but they thought a large presence was necessary in America to deal with the French and Spanish threat.
They therefore charged the colonists for the increased military levels, thus catalysing the resistance to taxes which led to the American Revolution. Bute introduced a Cider tax that charged 4 shillings per hogshead in 1763 to help finance the Seven Years' War. King George began to see through Bute, turned against him after being criticised for an official speech which the press recognised as Bute's own work; the journalist John Wilkes published a newspaper called The North Briton, in which both Bute and the Dowager Princess of Wales were savagely satirised. Bute resigned as prime minister shortly afterwards, although he remained in the House of Lords as a Scottish representative peer until 1780, he remained friendly with the Dowager Princess of Wales, but her attempts to reconcile him with George III proved futile. For the remainder of his life, Bute remained at his estate in Hampshire, where he built himself a mansion called High Cliff near Christchurch. From there he became a major literary and artistic patron.
Among his beneficiaries were Samuel Johnson, Tobias Smollett, Robert Adam, William Robertson and John Hill. He gave to the Scottish universities, his botanical w
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime Provinces, one of the four provinces that form Atlantic Canada. Its provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the second-smallest of Canada's ten provinces, with an area of 55,284 square kilometres, including Cape Breton and another 3,800 coastal islands; as of 2016, the population was 923,598. Nova Scotia is Canada's second-most-densely populated province, after Prince Edward Island, with 17.4 inhabitants per square kilometre. "Nova Scotia" means "New Scotland" in Latin and is the recognized English-language name for the province. In both French and Scottish Gaelic, the province is directly translated as "New Scotland". In general and Slavic languages use a direct translation of "New Scotland", while most other languages use direct transliterations of the Latin / English name; the province was first named in the 1621 Royal Charter granting to Sir William Alexander in 1632 the right to settle lands including modern Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and the Gaspé Peninsula.
Nova Scotia is Canada's smallest province in area after Prince Edward Island. The province's mainland is the Nova Scotia peninsula surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, including numerous bays and estuaries. Nowhere in Nova Scotia is more than 67 km from the ocean. Cape Breton Island, a large island to the northeast of the Nova Scotia mainland, is part of the province, as is Sable Island, a small island notorious for its shipwrecks 175 km from the province's southern coast. Nova Scotia has many ancient fossil-bearing rock formations; these formations are rich on the Bay of Fundy's shores. Blue Beach near Hantsport, Joggins Fossil Cliffs, on the Bay of Fundy's shores, has yielded an abundance of Carboniferous-age fossils. Wasson's Bluff, near the town of Parrsboro, has yielded both Triassic- and Jurassic-age fossils; the province contains 5,400 lakes. Nova Scotia lies in the mid-temperate zone and, although the province is surrounded by water, the climate is closer to continental climate rather than maritime.
The winter and summer temperature extremes of the continental climate are moderated by the ocean. However, winters are cold enough to be classified as continental—still being nearer the freezing point than inland areas to the west; the Nova Scotian climate is in many ways similar to the central Baltic Sea coast in Northern Europe, only wetter and snowier. This is true in spite of Nova Scotia's being some fifteen parallels south. Areas not on the Atlantic coast experience warmer summers more typical of inland areas, winter lows a little colder. Described on the provincial vehicle licence plate as Canada's Ocean Playground, Nova Scotia is surrounded by four major bodies of water: the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the north, the Bay of Fundy to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southwest, Atlantic Ocean to the east; the province includes regions of the Mi'kmaq nation of Mi'kma'ki. The Mi'kmaq people inhabited Nova Scotia at the time the first European colonists arrived. In 1605, French colonists established the first permanent European settlement in the future Canada at Port Royal, founding what would become known as Acadia.
The British conquest of Acadia took place in 1710. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 formally recognized this and returned Cape Breton Island to the French. Present-day New Brunswick still formed a part of the French colony of Acadia. After the capture of Port Royal in 1710, Francis Nicholson announced it would be renamed Annapolis Royal in honor of Queen Anne. In 1749, the capital of Nova Scotia moved from Annapolis Royal to the newly established Halifax. In 1755 the vast majority of the French population was forcibly removed in the Expulsion of the Acadians. In 1763, most of Acadia became part of Nova Scotia. In 1769, St. John's Island became a separate colony. Nova Scotia included present-day New Brunswick until that province's establishment in 1784, after the arrival of United Empire Loyalists. In 1867, Nova Scotia became one of the four founding provinces of the Canadian Confederation; the warfare on Nova Scotian soil during the 17th and 18th centuries influenced the history of Nova Scotia. The Mi'kmaq had lived in Nova Scotia for centuries.
The French arrived in 1604, Catholic Mi'kmaq and Acadians formed the majority of the population of the colony for the next 150 years. During the first 80 years the French and Acadians lived in Nova Scotia, nine significant military clashes took place as the English and Scottish and French fought for possession of the area; these encounters happened at Port Royal, Saint John, Cap de Sable and Baleine. The Acadian Civil War took place from 1640 to 1645. Beginning with King William's War in 1688, six wars took place in Nova Scotia before the British defeated the French and made peace with the Mi'kmaq: King William's War, Queen Anne's War, Father Rale's War, King George's War, Father Le Loutre’s War The Seven Years' War called the French and Indian War The battles during these wars took place Port Royal, Saint John, Chignecto, Dartmouth and Grand-Pré. Despite the British conquest of Acadia in 1710, Nova Scotia remained occupied
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, PC, FRS was a British statesman who succeeded his grandfather Edward Montagu, 3rd Earl of Sandwich as the Earl of Sandwich in 1729, at the age of ten. During his life, he held various military and political offices, including Postmaster General, First Lord of the Admiralty, Secretary of State for the Northern Department, he is known for the claim that he was the eponymous inventor of the sandwich. John Montagu was born in the son of Edward Montagu, Viscount Hinchingbrooke, his father died. His mother soon remarried and he had little further contact with her, he succeeded his grandfather as Earl of Sandwich in 1729. He was educated at Eton and at Trinity College and spent some time travelling going on the Grand Tour around Continental Europe before visiting the more unusual destinations of Greece and Egypt which were part of the Ottoman Empire; this led him to found a number of Orientalist societies. On his return to England in 1739, he took his seat in the House of Lords as a follower of the Duke of Bedford, one of the wealthiest and most powerful politicians of the era.
He became a Patriot Whig and one of the sharpest critics of the Walpole government, attacking the government's strategy in the War of the Austrian Succession. Like many Patriot Whigs, Lord Sandwich was opposed to Britain's support of Hanover and opposed the deployment of British troops on the European Continent to protect it, instead arguing that Britain should make greater use of its naval power, he gained attention for his speeches in parliament. His oratory earned him a reputation for setting out his argument if he lacked natural eloquence. In 1744, the Duke of Bedford was invited to join the government, now headed by Henry Pelham, taking the post of First Lord of the Admiralty. Sandwich joined him as one of the Commissioners of the Admiralty, in effect serving as deputy under Bedford; the experienced Admiral Lord Anson joined the Admiralty board and was an influential figure. Bedford spent much of his time at his country estate, much of the day-to-day running of the Admiralty fell to Sandwich and Anson.
Anson had control of the training and discipline of the navy, while Sandwich focused on the administration. Following a proposal by Admiral Edward Vernon, the concept of a Western Squadron was pioneered, which proved successful; this marked a radical shift in British naval strategy, led to British success at the Battles of Cape Finisterre. The following year, Sandwich took a commission as a Colonel in the British Army as part of the response to the Jacobite rising and the prospect of a French invasion. In order to boost the small British army, a number of units were raised by prominent figures, Sandwich served in the regiment formed by Bedford. While serving in The Midlands, he fell ill with fever and nearly died. After his recovery, he returned to his duties at the admiralty, he remained an army officer for the rest of his life, remaining on the half-pay list and rising to the rank of General though he took no further active part in the army. In 1746 he was sent as a plenipotentiary to the congress at Breda, he continued to take part in the negotiations for peace until the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was concluded in 1748.
Sandwich was made British Ambassador to the Dutch Republic during the talks. Using the resources of the British secret service, Sandwich was able to outmanoeuvre his French counterpart by intercepting the latter's secret correspondence, his service at Breda drew him to the attention of the influential Duke of Newcastle, who lobbied for him to be given high office when he returned home. It is possible that during his time at Breda, he played a role in the 1747 Dutch Revolution which brought The Prince of Orange wider powers, something supported by Britain as they hoped the Prince would improve the Dutch Republic's military performance in the ongoing war in the Low Countries. However, there is no firm evidence of this. In February 1748 he became First Lord of the Admiralty, retaining this post until June 1751. By 1751 Newcastle, who had admired Sandwich for his forthright and hardline views, had begun to distrust him and his relationship with The Duke of Bedford whom Newcastle regarded as a rival.
Newcastle engineered the dismissal of both of them, by sacking Sandwich. Bedford resigned in protest, as Newcastle had calculated, allowing him to replace them with men he considered more loyal to him. For the next few years Sandwich spent time at his country estate avoiding politics, though he kept in close contact with both Bedford and Anson and Britain's participation in the Seven Years' War. Thanks to naval reforms pioneered by Anson and Sandwich the Royal Navy enjoyed a series of successes and was able to blockade much of the French fleet in port. In 1763 he returned to the Admiralty in the government of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, encouraged a major rebuilding programme for the Royal Navy. Bute was a Tory, it was during this time. He was soon dismissed from the office, but was offered the influential position of Ambassador to Madrid. In August 1763 Sandwich became Secretary of State for the Northern Department, in the government of George Grenville who had replaced Bute. While filling this office he took a leading part in the successful prosecution of the radical M.
P. John Wilkes for obscene libel. Although he had been associated with Wilkes in the notorious Hellfire Club, recent scholarshi
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said, he promoted the "Grand Style" in painting. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, was knighted by George III in 1769. Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723 the third son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, master of the Plympton Free Grammar School in the town, his father had been a fellow of Balliol College, but did not send any of his sons to the university. One of his sisters was Mary Palmer, seven years his senior, author of Devonshire Dialogue, whose fondness for drawing is said to have had much influence on him when a boy. In 1740 she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshua's pupilage, nine years advanced money for his expenses in Italy, his other siblings included Elizabeth Johnson. As a boy, he came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. Reynolds made extracts in his commonplace book from Theophrastus, Seneca, Marcus Antonius, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Alexander Pope, John Dryden, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Aphra Behn, passages on art theory by Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy, André Félibien.
The work that came to have the most influential impact on Reynolds was Jonathan Richardson's An Essay on the Theory of Painting. Reynolds' annotated copy was lost for nearly two hundred years until it appeared in a Cambridge bookshop, inscribed with the signature ‘J. Reynolds Pictor’, is now in the collection of the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Having shown an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson, born in Devon. Hudson had a collection of Old Master drawings, including some by Guercino, of which Reynolds made copies. Although apprenticed to Hudson for four years, Reynolds remained with him only until summer 1743. Having left Hudson, Reynolds worked for some time as a portrait-painter in Plymouth Dock, he returned to London before the end of 1744, but following his father's death in late 1745 he shared a house in Plymouth Dock with his sisters. In 1749, Reynolds met Commodore Augustus Keppel, who invited him to join HMS Centurion, of which he had command, on a voyage to the Mediterranean.
While with the ship he visited Lisbon, Cadiz and Minorca. From Minorca he travelled to Livorno in Italy, to Rome, where he spent two years, studying the Old Masters and acquiring a taste for the "Grand Style". Lord Edgcumbe, who had known Reynolds as a boy and introduced him to Keppel, suggested he should study with Pompeo Batoni, the leading painter in Rome, but Reynolds replied that he had nothing to learn from him. While in Rome he suffered a severe cold, which left him deaf, and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is pictured. Reynolds travelled homeward overland via Florence, Bologna and Paris, he was accompanied by Giuseppe Marchi aged about 17. Apart from a brief interlude in 1770, Marchi remained in Reynolds' employment as a studio assistant for the rest of the artist's career. Following his arrival in England in October 1752, Reynolds spent three months in Devon, before establishing himself in London, where he remained for the rest of his life, he took rooms in St Martin's Lane, before moving to Great Newport Street, his sister Frances acted as his housekeeper.
He achieved success and was prolific. Lord Edgecumbe recommended the Duke of Devonshire and Duke of Grafton to sit for him, other peers followed, including the Duke of Cumberland, third son of George II, in whose portrait, according to Nicholas Penny "bulk is brilliantly converted into power". In 1760 Reynolds moved into a large house, with space to show his works and accommodate his assistants, on the west side of Leicester Fields. Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, Reynolds painted large numbers of smaller works. In the late 1750s, at the height of the social season, he received five or six sitters a day, each for an hour. By 1761 Reynolds could command a fee of 80 guineas for a full-length portrait; the clothing of Reynolds' sitters was painted by either one of his pupils, his studio assistant Giuseppe Marchi, or the specialist drapery painter Peter Toms. James Northcote, his pupil, wrote of this arrangement that "the imitation of particular stuffs is not the work of genius, but is to be acquired by practice, this was what his pupils could do by care and time more than he himself chose to bestow.
Lay figures were used to model the clothes. Reynolds adapted the poses of his subjects from the works of earlier artists, a practice mocked by Nathaniel Hone in a painting called The Conjuror submitted to the Royal Academy exhibition of 1775, now in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland, it shows a figure representing, though not resembling, seated in front of a cascade of prints from which Reynolds had borrowed with varying degrees of subtlety. Although not known principally for his landscapes, Reynolds did paint in this genre, he had an excellent vantage from his house, Wick House, on Richmond Hill, painted the view in about 1780. Reynolds was recognized for his portraits of children, he emphasized the innocence and natural grace of children. His 1788 portrait, Age of Innocence, is his best known character study of a c
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Halifax, George Montagu Dunk, 2nd Earl of". Encyclopædia Britannica. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
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