Augustus Hervey (c.1765-1782)

Thomas Gainsborough RA (Sudbury 1727 - London 1788). Oil painting on tin, Augustus Hervey (c.1765-1782) by Thomas Gainsborough RA (Sudbury 1727 - London 1788), inscribed: on paper label on backboard: Portrait by Gainsborough, painted on tin, of Augustus Hervey, Natural Son of Augustus John, Earl of Bristol. He was killed by the side of his captain, Lord Mulgrave, commanding H.M.S.Le Courageux [ ] Guns, in Lord Howe’s Action with the combined French & Spanish fleets, after the Relief of Gibraltar in 1782. Edmd Phipps, circa 1780. Octagonal half-length portrait of a young boy turned slightly to the right, gazing and head inclined to the left, dressed as a midshipman, and wearing blue jacket, blue cocked hat, dark necktie, fawn waistcoat and a cocked hat. Grey sky background. Small painting on stand. The unusual support of tin suggests it was intended to be sea-worthy. He was the illegitimate son of Augustus John Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol (1724-79) by Kitty Hunter. The young boy was sent to King Edward Grammar School, Bury St Edmunds in 1779 and then entered the navy. He served under the 2nd Lord Mulgrave, his cousin, on the “Courageux” in Admiral Lord Richard Howe’s action for the final Relief of Gibraltar. He was killed by a cannon ball in October 1782. The young boy had made his will in 1781, amongst his few belongings he mentioned his gold watch, his late father’s ring, a gold box set with diamonds with pictures of the Emperor and Empress, his lace ruffles, his silver shoe and knee buckles, silver and gilt shoe buckles and stone set knee buckles. The Plampin family of Chadacre received most of his property. John Plampin was a naval lieutenant, he was to receive the journals, logs, sword, pistols and spying glasses. He also mentioned John’s son George Plampin “now at school with me at Bury St Edmunds. His mother, Kitty Hunter was Catherine, one of the two younger of the four daughters of Thomas Orby Hunter (c.1716-1768), MP, of Crowland Abbey, Lincs. and Waverley Abbey, Surrey, and his wife, née Jacomina Bellenden. He was a Lord of the Admiralty (1756-57), and of the Treasury (1763-65). Catherine was a Maid of Honour to the new Queen Charlotte, and her elopement with the already-married 10th Earl of Pembroke from a masked ball at Lord Middleton’s on 18th February 1762 created a great scandal. He returned to his wife and to royal favour, however, being appointed Colonel of the 1st Royal Dragoons in 1764. The returns appear to have been facilitated by his friend, Captain Hervey (later 3rd Earl of Bristol) taking on Kitty Hunter as his mistress, giving him in exchange an autograph head-and-shoulders repetition by Reynolds, paid for in April 1763, of his three-quarter-length portrait of himself (cf. Sidney, 16th Earl of Pembroke, A Catalogue of the Paintings and Drawings in the Collection at Wilton House, 1968, no.67, p.31 & pl.133). Captain Hervey may not, however, have been the immediate recipient of the runaway, since Reynolds’s second portrait of Kitty Hunter, also probably painted in 1763 (Mannings, Cat. no.971, p.271 & fig.717), was given, not to Captain Hervey, but to Gibbs Crawfurd or Craufurd, of Saint Hill, Sussex [next door to Nymans]. Some time around 1765 she gave birth to the sitter in the present portrait – the 3rd Earl’s only male offspring – and not so long after that she married, as his first wife, Captain (later Field-Marshall Sir) Alured[?] Clarke (Reynolds made a note of her portrait being engraved – if it ever was, plate and print were destroyed – by Valentine Green, as ‘Mrs. Clarks Picture’, in November 1771; cf. Mannings, loc. cit.). She died in 1795. Ickworth, Suffolk (Accredited Museum)