Mr John Gilbert Talbot, MP, DCL 'Oxford University'

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Mr John Gilbert Talbot, MP, DCL 'Oxford University'

Spy (Sir Leslie Ward) (1851-1922)

Price

£2,750

Signed

Signed
Inscribed with title and dated 1897 on reverse

Medium

Watercolour and bodycolour on tinted paper on board

Dimensions

13 ½ x 8 ½ inches

Provenance

A G Witherby;
The John Franks Collection

Illustrated

Vanity Fair, 8 July 1897, Statesmen no 687, 'Oxford University'

Literature

Chris Beetles & Alexander Beetles (eds.) Portraits of Vanity Fair: The Charles Sigety Collection, London: Chris Beetles Ltd, 2023, page 121

Exhibited

'Vanity Fair 1869-1914', Church Farm House Museum, Hendon, September-December 1983;
'Portraits of Vanity Fair: The Charles Sigety Collection', Chris Beetles Gallery, London, October-November 2023, no 58

John Gilbert Talbot (1835-1910) began his career as Conservative MP for Kent West, a seat he held from 1868 to 1878, when he resigned to fight a by-election in the Oxford University constituency. Emerging victorious, he held the seat until 1910. From 1878 to 1880, he served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade under Benjamin Disraeli and in 1897, when his caricature appeared in Vanity Fair, he was sworn of the Privy Council.

“The late John Chetwynd Talbot, S.C, became his father two-and-sixty years ago, and his wife was born Miss Meriel Sarah Lyttelton; so that he is an Earl's nephew and a Baron's son-in-law. From the Charterhouse he went to the House (at Oxford); and thence, after two miscarriages (at Kidderminster and Malmesbury), to the House at Westminster. There he sat for nearly thirty years - ten being devoted to the services of West Kent, and the last nineteen to those of the Church, as one of the Members for Oxford University. He was once Secretary to the Board of Trade (under Lord Beaconsfield); and he is a Justice of the Peace for Sussex, Middlesex, and London; a Justice of the Peace, Deputy Lieutenant, and County Councillor for Kent; an Ecclesiastical Commissioner; Chairman of the West Kent Quarter Sessions, and of a Building Company; and a Director of one or two other concerns.

He is an Honorary D.C.L. of Oxford, where he is held in high esteem as a sound Churchman of known principles. Full of zeal, he is always to be heard in any discussion affecting the Church, while his equanimity outside Church matters is striking. He is a brother of the late Warden of Keble.

He is not beautiful, but he is a very well fitted representative of a great Conservative Institution.”