Sir Thomas Lawrence P.R.A. 1769-1830

half length, wearing a brown coat with a white stock

By family descent

National Portraits Exhibition, 1867, no.853

Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1900, p.121;

Sir Walter Armstrong, Lawrence, 1913, p.124;

Kenneth Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1954, p.62;

Kenneth Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, A Complete Catalogue of Oil Paintings, 1989, no.221

The sitter was the son of John Crewe of Crewe Hall and his wife Anne, daughter of Richard Shuttleworth of Gawthorpe Hall.  Educated at Christ Church he was a staunch Whig supporter of Charles James Fox, as well as one of the leading agriculturalists of his day.  He was a founder member of Brooks's and was M.P. for Stafford 1765-68 and for Cheshire 1768-1802.  When Fox came to power in 1806, Crewe was rewarded with a peerage.  Madame d'Arblay wrote in her diaries in 1813 that he 'seems always pleasing, unaffected and sensible, and to possess a share of innate modesty that no intercourse with the world, nor addition of years, can rob him of'.  In 1766 he married Frances, daughter of Fulke Greville (see next lot).