Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Welbore Ellis, 1st Baron Mendip (1713-1802), Politician; MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis and Secretary of State for the Colonies

Statesman; son of Welbore Ellis, Bishop of Meath; travelled in Italy 1739-40; FRS 1745; MP 1741-94, acquiring the reputation of a placeman; lord of the Admiralty 1747-55, vice-treasurer of Ireland 1755-62 and 1770-77, secretary of war 1762-65, treasurer of the navy 1777-1782 and secretary of state for America 1782; created Baron Mendip 1794.

‘in his figure, manner, and deportment the very essence of form, he regularly took his place on the Treasury bench dressed in all points as if he had been going to the drawing-room at St James’s’ (Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, 1815).

‘ridiculed for his diminutive stature, not redeemed by any loftiness of mind’ (Philip, 5th Earl of Stanhope, 1854).


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, National Portrait Gallery, 2004, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.