Sir William Elias Taunton ('A view taken from the Town Hall, Oxford')

1 portrait of Sir William Elias Taunton

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Sir William Elias Taunton ('A view taken from the Town Hall, Oxford')

by Robert Dighton
hand-coloured etching, published 1 May 1807
11 in. x 8 in. (278 mm x 203 mm) paper size
Purchased with help from the Friends of the National Libraries and the Pilgrim Trust, 1966
Reference Collection
NPG D9426

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Robert Dighton (1751-1814), Portrait painter, caricaturist and actor. Artist or producer associated with 320 portraits, Sitter in 4 portraits.

Related worksback to top

  • NPG D13301: Sir William Elias Taunton ('A view taken from the Town Hall, Oxford') (from same plate)
  • NPG D13423: Sir William Elias Taunton ('A view taken from the Town Hall, Oxford') (from same plate)

Events of 1807back to top

Current affairs

Act is passed abolishing the British slave trade after vigorous campaigning by hundreds of thousands of people led by Thomas Clarkson and championed in parliament by reformer William Wilberforce.
Resignation of 'Ministry of all the Talents'. Whig politician William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, Duke of Portland, succeeds as Prime Minister.

Art and science

Thomas Hope publishes Household Furniture and Interior Decoration; influential in promoting Greek and especially Egyptian models as the epitome of fashionable style.

International

French invasion of Spain and Portugal.
Britain occupies Copenhagen and captures the Danish fleet.
Napoleon begins to wage an economic battle against Britain, recognising the impossibility of victory at sea because of Britain's superior naval power. He aims to close the entire European coastline to British trade.

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Sir John Baker

27 November 2019, 16:11

This portrait is almost certainly of the judge's father of the same name (1744-1825), who was town clerk of Oxford (hence the allusion to the Town Hall) and clerk of the peace; ODNB gives the father a knighthood as well, but this seems unlikely. The portraits are compatible, with very bushy eyebrows, but the judge was only 24 in 1807 and this seems to be an older man.