Jonathan Wild

by Thomas Cook, after Unknown artist
line engraving, published 1819
10 1/8 in. x 6 1/8 in. (257 mm x 156 mm) plate size; 11 1/2 in. x 8 in. (292 mm x 203 mm) paper size
Purchased with help from the Friends of the National Libraries and the Pilgrim Trust, 1966
Reference Collection
NPG D8021

Sitterback to top

Jonathan Wild (1682 or 1683-1725), 'Thief Taker General’, informer and receiver of stolen goods. Sitter in 2 portraits.

Artistsback to top

Thomas Cook (1744 or 1745?-1818), Printmaker. Artist or producer associated with 36 portraits.
Unknown artist, Artist. Artist or producer associated with 6556 portraits.

Portrait setback to top

Macdonnell Collection

Subjects & Themesback 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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