Francis Rodd
© National Portrait Gallery, London
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Francis Rodd
published by Morris & Co, after Charles William Walton
lithograph, late 19th century
23 7/8 in. x 17 3/8 in. (606 mm x 440 mm) paper size
Reference Collection
NPG D39828
Artistsback to top
- Morris & Co (active late 19th century), Lithographers. Artist or producer associated with 23 portraits.
- Charles William Walton (1846-1929), Draughtsman, lithographer and publisher. Artist or producer associated with 43 portraits.
Events of 1870back to top
Current affairs
William Edward Forster's Education Act is passed, making provisions for education for all under-13s. It demonstrated the balance in Gladstone's first ministry between progressive reform and conservativism by spreading literacy, whilst maintaining the status of Church schools.The Married Women's Property Act gives wives rights over their own earnings.
Art and science
The Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet, based on Shakespeare's play and written with the aid of composer Mily Balakirev, debuts in Moscow, conducted by Nikolai Rubenstein.W. G. Grace becomes cricket captain of Gloucestershire, marking the start of a successful decade for the club in which they won three 'Champion County' titles.
International
Isaac Butt, an Irish MP at Westminster, forms the Home Rule Association.The Franco-Prussian war breaks out between France and a coalition of German states led by Prussia. Provoked by the candidacy of German Prince Leopold Hohenzollen-Sigmaringen for the Spanish throne, France declared war in July after Bismark published the deliberately provocative Ems telegraph, in which the French were represented in an offensive light on the issue.
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Julian Hargreaves
14 March 2018, 15:57
Francis Rodd (1806-1880) was squire of Trebartha near Launceston, Cornwall, from 1842. Educated at Winchester College and Cambridge, he was a J.P. and Deputy Lieutenant for Cornwall, and served as High Sheriff in 1845. He married Mary Rashleigh in 1837, they had two sons and two daughters. He was widowed in 1866. The sons in turn eventually inherited the Trebartha estate.
Thirteen of his annual diaries survive in the Cornwall Record Office.
In his diary for 23 March 1876 he writes: "Mr Moody of London brought me my Portrait enlarged from a Photograph."
It is thus assumed that the “portrait” was not itself a photograph. In 1881 there is a Thomas Moody a “lithographic printer” living in Mile End, London, who was there also in 1876. So it is very likely that this Thomas Moody brought the print down to Cornwall for approval, and of course for signature, a copy of which was taken back to incorporate on the plate. It is presumed that Moody was working for Walton.
In 1876, Francis Rodd was 70, but looks somewhat younger in the lithograph, so the original photograph was taken at a much earlier date.