Robert Raikes
- Overview
- Extended Catalogue Entry
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Robert Raikes
by George Romney
oil on canvas, 1785-1788
48 3/4 in. x 38 3/4 in. (1238 mm x 984 mm)
Purchased, 1909
Primary Collection
NPG 1551
Sitterback to top
- Robert Raikes (1735-1811), Journalist and promoter of Sunday Schools. Sitter in 6 portraits.
Artistback to top
- George Romney (1734-1802), Portrait painter. Artist or producer associated with 173 portraits, Sitter in 5 portraits.
This portraitback to top
Raikes's ideas gained widespread support, especially from evangelical writers such as Sarah Trimmer and Hannah More who encouraged the foundation of schools in rural and industrial communities. By 1831 more than one and a half million children were registered in Sunday Schools.
Linked publicationsback to top
- Smartify image discovery app
- Ingamells, John, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, 2004, p. 390
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 510
Events of 1785back to top
Current affairs
George Prince of Wales secretly marries his mistress Maria Fitzherbert in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act of 1772.Prime Minister William Pitt introduces a bill proposing parliamentary reform and the abolition of 'rotten boroughs' but is defeated.
Art and science
William Cowper publishes his best -known poem The Task.James Boswell publishes The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, narrating his travels with the late writer Samuel Johnson.
Physician and naturalist James Hutton presents his studies of local rocks to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, launching the era of scientific geology.
International
Warren Hastings resigns as Governor-General of Bengal and returns to England. His trial begins on charges of corruption in the administration of India.French sculptor Jean Antoine Houdon crosses the Atlantic to sculpt a statue of George Washington.
British government establishes a permanent land force in the Eastern Caribbean, based in Barbados.
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