Archibald Campbell Tait ('An earnest and liberal Primate')

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Archibald Campbell Tait ('An earnest and liberal Primate')

by Carlo Pellegrini
coloured lithograph, published 25 December 1869
13 3/8 in. x 8 3/8 in. (339 mm x 212 mm) paper size
Reference Collection
NPG D4405

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Carlo Pellegrini (1839-1889), 'Ape'; caricaturist. Artist or producer associated with 490 portraits, Sitter in 5 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Clerk, Honor, The Sitwells, 1994 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 14 October - 22 January 1995), p. 24 Read entry

    Archbishop Tait (1811-1882) was the youngest brother of Sir George's grandmother. Sir George's guardian and the flagship of Lady Sitwell's clerical world, he succeeded Dr Arnold as headmaster of Rugby and served as Dean of Carlisle and Bishop of London before becoming Archbishop of Canterbury in 1869. Admired as a fair-minded and statesmanlike administrator, he suffered a cataleptic seizure (brought on by overwork) in November 1869 and this caricature, published in Vanity Fair, was accompanied by an economium on his good works and thanksgiving for his restored health. Osbert bore him a posthumous grudge for habitually gargling with the Renishaw 1815 port to disinfect his sore throat.

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Events of 1869back to top

Current affairs

Gladstone introduces the Irish Church Disestablishment Act, which disestablishes the Church of Ireland, disassociating it from the state and repealing the paying of tithes to the Anglican Church of Ireland.
Girton College is founded in Cambridge by Barbara Bodichon and Emily Davies, the first residential college for women in England; women were granted full membership to the University in 1948.

Art and science

Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev invents the periodic table of elements, which arranges elements within a group in order of their atomic mass.
The British scientist Mary Somerville publishes her last book On Molecular and Microscopic Science.
Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir paint together in the open air at La Grenouillère, developing the Impressionist style.

International

The Suez canal opens, linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez with the Mediterranean Sea, and transforming trade routes between Europe and Asia as merchants no longer had to circumvent Africa. The canal was largely in British and French control until Egyptian nationalisation in 1956, which sparked off the international Suez crisis.
Serialisation of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel of Russian society during the Napoleonic wars, War and Peace finishes.

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