Summary
When this picture was exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1769 as A gentleman's family, Horace Walpole noted in his copy of the catalogue that the sitter was 'Mr Bradshaw Secretary of the Treasury'. The portrait depicts the family of Thomas Bradshaw (1733-74), the private secretary to Augustus Henry Fitz-Roy, 3rd Duke of Grafton and Prime Minister after Chatham. Bradshaw, sometime Clerk at the War Office, became Secretary of the Treasury in 1768, Member of Parliament for Saltash, and Lord Commissioner in 1772. He was made a Lord of the Admiralty in 1774; however, in November of that year, suffering from financial worries, he shot himself.
Bradshaw's wife Elizabeth (née Wilson, died 1802), whom he married in 1757, is seated to the right. As identified by Martin Davies (Davies 1959, p.112), the two eldest boys are Bradshaw's sons Barrington (1761-1804), at left flying a kite, and Robert Haldane (1759-1835), at the far right with the pony; the other children are probably Elizabeth (1767-93) and Lawrence (1768-1853). The Bradshaws eventually had seven children. Thomas (born 1763) died young, and Augustus Hill (1769-1851) and Charlotte (1772-3) were born after this picture was made. The second woman, holding up some fruit, has been identified as Bradshaw's sister… (read more)
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