Sir Thomas Lawrence was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at the Bear Hotel in the Market Square. At age ten, having moved to Bath, he was supporting his family with his pastel portraits. At 18, he went to London and soon established his reputation as a portrait painter in oils, receiving his first royal commission, a portrait of Queen Charlotte, in 1789. He stayed at the top of his profession until his death, aged 60, in 1830.
Benjamin Robert Haydon was a British painter who specialised in grand historical pictures, although he also painted a few contemporary subjects and portraits. His commercial success was damaged by his often tactless dealings with patrons, and by the enormous scale on which he preferred to work. He was troubled by financial problems throughout his life, which led to several periods of imprisonment for debt. He died by suicide in 1846.
Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, was a British statesman who became Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain and played a prominent role in passing the Reform Act 1832 and Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland was a British Whig and then a Tory politician during the late Georgian era. He served as chancellor of the University of Oxford (1792–1809) and as Prime Minister of Great Britain (1783) and then of the United Kingdom (1807–1809). The gap of 26 years between his two terms as prime minister is the longest of any British prime minister. He was also an ancestor of King Charles III through his great-granddaughter Cecilia Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne.
Frederick John Robinson, 1st Earl of Ripon,, styled The Honourable F. J. Robinson until 1827 and known between 1827 and 1833 as The Viscount Goderich, the name by which he is best known to history, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1827 to 1828.
Benjamin West was a British-American artist who painted famous historical scenes such as The Death of Nelson, The Death of General Wolfe, the Treaty of Paris, and Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky.
John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell, PC, FRSE was a British Liberal politician, lawyer and man of letters.
Baron Brougham and Vaux, of Brougham in the County of Westmorland and of High Head Castle in the County of Cumberland, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1860 for Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, a lawyer, Whig politician, and formerly Lord Chancellor, with remainder to his younger brother William Brougham. He had already been created Baron Brougham and Vaux, of Brougham in the County of Westmorland, in 1830, also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, with normal remainder to the heirs male of his body.
Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield, was an English Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1705 to 1710. He was Lord Chief Justice from 1710 to 1718 and acted briefly as one of the regents before the arrival of King George I in Britain. His career ended when he was convicted of corruption on a massive scale and he spent the later years of his life in retirement at his home, Shirburn Castle in Oxfordshire.
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer was an English painter and sculptor, well known for his paintings of animals – particularly horses, dogs, and stags. His best-known works are the lion sculptures at the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square.
William Brougham, 2nd Baron Brougham and Vaux, known as William Brougham until 1868, was a British barrister and Whig politician.
Frederick Richard Say was a notable society portrait painter in London between c. 1830 and c.1860, undertaking commissions for portraits of figures such as Earl Grey, Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington and the Royal family.
Charles Landseer was an English painter, mostly of historical subjects.
Thomas Scales (1786–1860) was a leading British abolitionist. He was the first minister of Queen Street Chapel in Leeds and he founded the Silcoates School.
The House of Commons, 1833 is a large history painting by the British artist George Hayter. It depicts the first meeting of the House of Commons following the 1832 Great Reform Act and the subsequent general election that produced a landslide majority for the ruling Whig Government. In the Victorian era the painting was often known as The First Reformed Parliament.
The Mock Election is an 1827 genre painting by the British artist Benjamin Robert Haydon. It was inspired by a real-life event that took place while Haydon was himself imprisoned at the King's Bench Prison in Southwark for debt.
The Reform Banquet is a history painting by the English artist Benjamin Robert Haydon. Completed and first exhibited in 1834 it represents a scene on 11 July 1832 when supporters of the recent Reform Act including the Prime Minister Earl Grey and other government ministers met for a celebratory dinner at the Guildhall in the City of London. Comparisons have been drawn between this work and George Hayter's The House of Commons, 1833 which were both large-scale depictions related to the recent Reform Act.
Portrait of Earl Grey is an 1820 portrait painting by the English artist Thomas Phillips depicting the British aristocrat and Whig politician Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, who later became Prime Minister.
Alexander the Great Taming Bucephalus is an 1826 history painting by the British artist Benjamin Robert Haydon. It depicts a scene from ancient history when Alexander the Great tamed his famous warhorse Bucephalus. On the right of the picture are Alexander's father Philip II of Macedon and mother Olympias.
The Duke of Wellington Describing the Field of Waterloo to George IV is an 1840 history painting by the British artist Benjamin Robert Haydon. It depicts a scene in 1821 when George IV was escorted around the site of the Battle of Waterloo, six years after it was fought, by the victorious Allied commander the Duke of Wellington. Haydon had visited the battlefield himself in 1839.
