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Portrait of Samuel Thornton Esq.
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Charles Turner ARA (1774 - 1857), engraver
After Thomas Phillips RA (1770 - 1845)
After a painting of 1815 [date given in the Dictionary of National Biography]
After Thomas Phillips RA (1770 - 1845)
After a painting of 1815 [date given in the Dictionary of National Biography]
Portrait of Samuel Thornton Esq.
1827
Mezzotint engraving.
Inscription: Samuel Thornton Esq.re [title]
Inscription: Painted by Thomas Phillips Esqre R.A. Engraved by C. Turner, Mezzotinto Engraver in Ordinary to His Majesty.
Inscription: PROOF [lower left corner]
Inscription note: This is a proof plate without the publication details printed across the bottom edge. In the final state the publication details appear along the bottom: 'London Published Decr. 19 1827 by Mr. Martin Colnaghi, Cockspur Street, Charing Cross' (see examples in the British Museum Prints and Drawings collection).
Inscription note: This is a proof plate without the publication details printed across the bottom edge. In the final state the publication details appear along the bottom: 'London Published Decr. 19 1827 by Mr. Martin Colnaghi, Cockspur Street, Charing Cross' (see examples in the British Museum Prints and Drawings collection).
Museum number: P194
On display: Breakfast Room
All spaces are in No. 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields unless identified as in No. 12, Soane's first house.
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Curatorial note
Portrait of Samuel Thornton (1755-1838), merchant, politician (MP) and a Director of the Bank of England. On the death of his father, John Thornton, of Hull and Clapham, Surrey, in 1790 Samuel Thornton succeeded him as head of the family business in Hull, which was engaged in trade with the Baltic countries. He was appointed a director of the Bank of England in 1780, a post he held for fifty-three years, serving as deputy governor between 1797 and 1799 and governor from 1799 until 1801. He became an assistant of the Russia Company in 1778 and governor from 1810 until his death. He was also an assistant of the Eastland Company (who competed with the Hanseatic league for trade wtih the Baltic) from 1795 and deputy governor from 1810 until his death.
Samuel was first cousin to Godfrey Thornton, also a director and Governor of the Bank of the Bank of England and Soane's client at Moggerhanger Park, Bedfordshire. Samuel's younger brother Henry Thornton masterminded the creation of the evangelical Christian 'Clapham Sect' and, as a Member of Parliament helped their cousin William Wilberforce to force the vote for the abolition of the slave trade in March 1807. Samuel was returned as a Tory MP for Hull with Wilberforce in March 1784 and held the seat until 1806. Although he supported Abolition he was not an MP in March 1807. He was returned as an MP again, for Surrey (he had bought an estate at Albury in 1800) in May 1807. He was defeated at the general election in 1812 but returned at a by-election in 1813. He left Parliament after losing his seat in 1818.
Soane knew the Thornton family well through the Bank and must have felt great friendship and respect for Samuel. Not only did he hang this portrait in his Breakfast Room at 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields some time after its publication in 1827 but he nominated Samuel to be one of the first four 'Life Trustees' of the Museum in the Soane Museum Act of Parliament (1833). Sadly, Samuel was only a Trustee for a year, dying just over a year after Soane in 1838.
Samuel is shown in front of a pillar and a curtain, seated in an armchair facing proper left and holding an opened letter in his right hand. On the table to his right, alongside an inkwell in which is a quill pen, is a folded letter addressed 'To / S. Thornton / Bank'.
Samuel was first cousin to Godfrey Thornton, also a director and Governor of the Bank of the Bank of England and Soane's client at Moggerhanger Park, Bedfordshire. Samuel's younger brother Henry Thornton masterminded the creation of the evangelical Christian 'Clapham Sect' and, as a Member of Parliament helped their cousin William Wilberforce to force the vote for the abolition of the slave trade in March 1807. Samuel was returned as a Tory MP for Hull with Wilberforce in March 1784 and held the seat until 1806. Although he supported Abolition he was not an MP in March 1807. He was returned as an MP again, for Surrey (he had bought an estate at Albury in 1800) in May 1807. He was defeated at the general election in 1812 but returned at a by-election in 1813. He left Parliament after losing his seat in 1818.
Soane knew the Thornton family well through the Bank and must have felt great friendship and respect for Samuel. Not only did he hang this portrait in his Breakfast Room at 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields some time after its publication in 1827 but he nominated Samuel to be one of the first four 'Life Trustees' of the Museum in the Soane Museum Act of Parliament (1833). Sadly, Samuel was only a Trustee for a year, dying just over a year after Soane in 1838.
Samuel is shown in front of a pillar and a curtain, seated in an armchair facing proper left and holding an opened letter in his right hand. On the table to his right, alongside an inkwell in which is a quill pen, is a folded letter addressed 'To / S. Thornton / Bank'.
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