William Wordsworth

by Henry Meyer, after Richard Carruthers
stipple engraving, circa 1819
6 3/4 in. x 4 3/4 in. (171 mm x 121 mm) plate size; 10 in. x 6 1/4 in. (254 mm x 159 mm) paper size
Purchased with help from the Friends of the National Libraries and the Pilgrim Trust, 1966
Reference Collection
NPG D8808

Sitterback to top

William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Poet Laureate. Sitter in 23 portraits.

Artistsback to top

Richard Carruthers (1792-1876). Artist or producer associated with 4 portraits.
Henry Meyer (1782?-1847), Portrait painter and engraver. Artist or producer associated with 279 portraits.

Related worksback to top

NPG D8807: William Wordsworth (from same plate)
NPG D8813: William Wordsworth (from same plate)

Portrait setback to top

Macdonnell Collection

Subject/Themeback to top

Stipple engraving

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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