Copyright Philip Mould Ltd

According to family tradition, Sir Thomas Lawrence PRA (1769-1830) painted this portrait of Michael Daintry in 1813, whilst he was staying at the family home, in North Rode, Cheshire. The Daintrys were a wealthy north-west family, with business interests in Macclesfield in the banking and cotton industries. The picture is typical of the works Lawrence produced from mid 1800s through to the 1820s, when he was at the peak of his career.

Michael Daintry is shown in the uniform of a Midshipman in the Royal Navy, and at the time he sat to Lawrence was about to depart for service. It was common for families to commission portraits of relatives before they left for any distant destination, in this case India, where there was often no guarantee of returning. The present picture is one of few portraits of the Navy’s numerous ‘boy sailors’, and highlights the young age at which it was common to join the Navy. Lord Nelson himself joined the Navy when he was twelve, while the youngest participant at the Battle of Trafalgar was just eight years old. Little is known of Midshipman’s Daintry’s naval career, although the fact that at his death in 1853 he was recorded as being a Captain in the Guards suggests that he was not long in the Navy. He died unmarried, and the family estate passed to his brothers.