William ('Gentleman') Smith

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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William ('Gentleman') Smith

by John Jackson
oil on panel, circa 1819
14 3/4 in. x 12 1/8 in. (374 mm x 309 mm)
Given by G.S. Gimson, QC, 1999
Primary Collection
NPG 6497

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • John Jackson (1778-1831), Portrait painter. Artist or producer associated with 232 portraits, Sitter in 6 portraits.

This portraitback to top

A version of the lost portrait commissioned by Sir George Beaumont, perhaps from the sitter's own collection and certainly in the possession of the Smith family from an early date.

Related worksback to top

  • NPG D9068: William ('Gentleman') Smith (source portrait)
  • NPG D41774: William ('Gentleman') Smith (source portrait)

Linked publicationsback to top

Events of 1819back to top

Current affairs

Peterloo Massacre leaves eleven dead and four hundred wounded as crowds, gathered to hear radical Henry Hunt call for reform of the House of Commons, are forcibly dispersed.
Six Acts are passed, stiffening the 1795 Treason Act and introducing a tax on the periodical press which was viewed as seditious.

Art and science

Percy Bysshe Shelley writes Ode to the West Wind during a year of extraordinary creativity in which he also finishes Prometheus Unbound.
Lord Byron publishes his tour-de-force Don Juan; one man's mock-epic odyssey through a world without fixed principles.
First ship with a steam engine crosses the Atlantic in twenty-eight days.

International

Thomas Jefferson establishes the University of Virginia.
Royal Navy anti-slave squadron is set up to patrol the West African coastline.
French physician Rene Laennac invents the stethoscope.

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