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SEVENTH GENERATION

113. Thomas BOWLBY ⁽⁶²²⁾⁽⁶²³⁾⁽⁸⁾ was born in 1721.⁽⁶²⁴⁾⁽⁶²⁵⁾ He was baptised on 2 May 1721 in St. Mary-le-Bow, Durham.⁽⁶²⁶⁾ He died in 1795.⁽⁶²⁷⁾
He was of the city of Durham, Comptroller of Army Accounts, Paymaster of the Forces, and Commissioner of Excise, sometime Member of Parliament for Launceston. He was a protege of Duke of Northumberland, and a member of Horace Walpole's circle for which he acted occasionally as a kind of artistic go-between.

Several pieces of Thomas' correspondence with Henry Pelham-Clinton, 2nd Duke of Newcastle under Lyne, have been catalogued and summarized at a web site from the University of Nottingham Library Manuscripts and Special Collections at: http://mss.nottingham.ac.uk/cats/newc_2ndduke_rest.html

Ronnie Bowlby, <rebowl@tinyworld.co.uk> shared the following in Feb. 2001:

Here is the full quotation from the Memoire of Frances, Lady Douglas, edited by Lady Louisa Stewart and published by the Scottish Academic Press in 1985.

"Lord William (Gordon) I must enlarge upon, as the duke of Buccleugh's old friend, and the very life and soul of the Dalkeith coteries in town and country. He was a character, an original; odd, clever, beyond measure entertaining; one of those people who appear to have bullied the world out of an unlimited license to say and do whatsoever they please. Upon any extraordinary speech or extravagant action, his friends coolly observed - "Ah! that is so like him!" - Others asked - "will he never shut up?" - alluding to the family malady - but neither gave it a second thought. Wherever he gained a footing there he was master, sure to govern. You knew not how or why, but the whole family, men, women, chidlren, dogs and cats obeyed him; nobody disputed his pleasure: nor could any body make a stand against him whom he disliked or had a mind to turn to ridicule. He set about it above board, visibly and audibly, with such force of humour, that, pleased or displeased, all held their sides except the victim. For instance, Mr. Bowlby, a shallow affected old coxcomb - but the Duchess's uncle -gave himself the air of sentimentally languishing for Lady Morton. I have known Lord William sitting at supper in Grosvenor Square directly opposite to them, talk (more than half aloud) of Philander and Celia, Strephon and Chloris; expatriate - regardless of hush and fye from every side- upon faithful knights, and enamoured swains, and pastoral love, and platonic love , and Lord knows how much more nonsense, 'till the whole company tired of hatching coughs and almost swallowing their handkerchiefs laughed our in chorus. The duke and duchess declared it too bad but laughed like the rest. After one of these scenes, Lady Mary Bowlby, seriously incensed, would not speak to him. Then the joke was to entrap her into it against her will; watching her looks, and playing all sorts of monkey-tricks to extort a monosyllable by surprise."

He was married to Lady Mary BRUDENELL on 20 Jun 1754 in St. George's Hanover Square, county Middlesex.⁽⁶²⁸⁾⁽⁶²⁹⁾⁽⁶³⁰⁾ This union produced no offspring.
Raymond Edwin Bowlby notes:

Thomas Gainsborough painted companion portraits of Thomas Bowlby and Lady Mary in Bath in 1766. These portraits were separated for nearly 150 years until they were brought together by the curator of the Gainsborough's House Gallery. Sir Joshua Reynolds also painted in 1765 a portrait of Thomas Bowlby which now hangs in Clowes Pavilion, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana.

In 2000, Maureen Tucker from the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana wrote:

Yes, we do have a portrait of Thomas Bowlby painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds dated 1765. However, this piece is not in our Clowes collection. I would be more than happy to give you any information I can regarding the piece.

As for whether or not we will be putting pictures on our website, that is a long term goal of ours...

Maureen Tucker
Registration Department

From 3/2000
Cynthia,

The piece is in our permanent collection. The Clowes collection are separate from our permanent collection, so the piece is here at the museum. I can give you some information that I found in the historical file for the portrait, but if you would like to set up an appointment to look at the historical file, you will have to contact our Associate Registrar Terry Harley-Wilson and make arrangements with her. You can contact her at the same e-mail address or (317)923-1331 ext. 179.

This is the information I found on an old label copy for the painting:

A protâegâee of the Duke of Northumberland, Bowlby was a member of Horace Walpole's circle, for which he acted occasionally as a kind of artistic go-between. It was no doubt through these contacts that he came to have his portrait painted by Reynolds, whom Walpole regarded as the savior of English art. As in Gower's "Lady Philippa Coningsby, " the gesture and inscription present a moral injunction of a surprisingly traditional nature. The apple is a symbol of original sin and "BASTA" (inscribed on the upper right corner of the painting) is the Italian word for "enough." Together they may be taken as an admonition to renounce sin for the path of righteousness. "Thomas Bowlby" presents a combination of devices found in Titian's "Portrait of a Man" and Valentin de Boullogne's "Rafaello Menicucci." Despite his debt to Van Dyck, Reynolds recommended studying all the great painters of the past and incorporated a wide variety of elements gleaned from them in his portraits.

There was also a copy of an article in the historical file detailing how there was another portrait of Thomas Bowlby by Thomas Gainsborough, who also painted a portrait of his wife, Lady Mary Bowlby. The two portraits were finally reunited. I do not have a date on the article, but the curator of the Gainsborough's House Gallery, Mr. Hugh Belsey, was the man responsible for tracking down the "lost" portrait of Bowlby by Gainsborough and "reuniting" it with the portrait of his wife.

I hope this information is helpful to you in your research. As I said, you can always set up an appointment with our Associate Registrar to review the historical file for your research. Again, if you have any more questions, please let me know.

Maureen Tucker
Registration Department Lady Mary BRUDENELL⁽⁶³¹⁾⁽⁶⁾ ⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾ was born in 1717.⁽⁶³²⁾ She died on 21 Feb 1813 in London, England.⁽⁶³³⁾⁽⁶³⁴⁾ Mary (Brudenell) Powys was the second daughter of George Brudenell, 3rd Earl of Cardigan, and widow of Richard Powys of Hintlesham Hall, county Suffolk.