The Codrington Library Plaster Busts by John Cheere,
All Souls College, Oxford University.
Part 23. Sir Nathaniel Lloyd (1669 - 1741).
Fellow of All Souls, 1689.
Judge Advocate and Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
Born
in the Savoy Hospital 29 November 1669, eldest son of Sir Richard Lloyd by
Elizabeth, his wife. He was educated at St Paul's School and Trinity College,
Oxford, where he matriculated 9 April 1685. He was elected fellow of All Souls'
College in 1689, graduated B.C.L. 22 June 1691, and proceeded D.C.L. 30 June
1696, in which year he was admitted a member of the College of Advocates (21
November).
Lloyd
was appointed deputy admiralty Advocate during the absence of Dr. Henry Newton
on 15 Nov. 1701, and was king's advocate from 1715 to 1727.
He was knighted 29
May 1710, and the same year was incorporated at Cambridge, and admitted (20
June) master of Trinity Hall, the chapel of which he enlarged and to which he
bequeathed £3,000 to rebuild the hall. He resigned the mastership on 1 October
1735, died at Sunbury-on-Thames on 30 March 1745, and was buried in Trinity
Hall Chapel on 8 April.
info above from - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Lloyd
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For the painted portraits of Nathaniel Lloyd see - http://oxoniensia.org/volumes/1960/guinness.pdf
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Sir Nathaniel Lloyd portrait depicting the front court of Trinity Hall finished in 1742.
Thomas Gibson (1680 - 1751).
Oil on canvas.
237.5 x 136 cms
All Souls College, Oxford.
Another three-quarter-length version, possibly by Gibson, but attributed to Thornhill (below) is at Lincoln College. Oxford.
This,
however, shows to the right the Front Court of Trinity Hall which was completed
in 1742.
A fine full-length at Trinity Hall, attributed to Thornhill, may also
be the work of Gibson. It is a grander work than the portrait at All Souls but
relates to it closely in composition and in the presentation of the sitter.
Image courtesy Art UK.
In, 1726 he informs the Warden of his desire to be
buried at All Souls. On, February 1728 (O.S.) Dr. George Clarke' suggests
to the Warden that great reliance may be placed on Lloyd's good inclinations
towards the College. This hope is confirmed by Lloyd's offer in July 1729 to lend £ 1,000 to be employed ' towards turning the Hall'.
The
first mention of the idea of having a portrait painted of Sir Nathaniel appears
in a letter written by Lloyd to the Warden, Stephen Niblett. This was
sent via another Fellow of All Souls, who was also a Member of Doctors'Commons
and was later to be Lloyd's executor, Dr. Edward Kinaston.
..............
12 November 1733
Mr. Warden
I
immediately Acknowledgd the Honour to Dr. Kinaston, who sent mee the
Order: I thought 'ere this he Had wrote my Purpose, in a familiar way expressed
a If I must be Hang'd, I begg'd a Reprieve for Some times. I
woud not Top upon Seniority, There is a much Finer, & Nobler Length to
Grace Your Hall. The Anima of Our Mundis-' I
added in mine to Dr. Kinaston that it being Sol. Col. I thought they shd.
appoint the Hand, and Direct the whole of the Peice, and when I might sitt
for my Phyis- I now add to Disgrace the Best Finish'd Room in Oxford. I Joy
You of it. May it be yr. Damus Capitularis for the Election of Fellows, who
may Prove Good and Great in Church and State.
N. LL
Kinaston
forwarded Lloyd's letter to the Warden together with a covering note
that reveals the College's true motive in requesting Sir Nathaniel to sitfor
his portrait.
13 November 1733
The
Order. he means I sent him word of [what] was the result of the meeting where
in I was desired by You and the Society to acquaint Sr. Nathaniel with the
favour You ask of him to sit for his picture. The Hanging being reprieved
alludes to an Expression of mine in my first letter to Sr. Nathaniel wherein I
happend to say the College desired him to sit for his Picture of the same
dimensions wch [sic] the Founder & ColI. Codrington's' to be hung in the
New Hall. You'l perceive at what little twigs he catches at modestly to get a
Reprieve but not as I think totally to decline the College Request but on the
Contrary; after what he sayes, which I was glad to [see] ... ,of his senior in
the College. N.B. my own thoughts the thing pleased Him and has Catchd him, not
my own thoughts only but the sentiments of one who knows him intimately than I
doe, who said, it was a Stratagem of the College & that he believed one day
or another the College wd find this request answerd to their own advantage.
This I desire may be kept inter nos. You'l please to answer the letter Yourself
to Him.
It is
possible to trace the stages of development of the portrait through four other
letters. The first is from Dr. Kinaston and the other three from Lloyd. They
are all addressed from Doctors' Commons to the Warden. They provide further
illustration of the sitter's somewhat ponderous wit and his very individual
spelling.
I had
a letter last night from Sir N. which begins thus, Who better than Dr. Clark to
name the Hand and direct the whole? Now Sr we have set the Wheels agoing and it
falls into the Person You thought of to conduct them forward I doubt not but
this affair will be done well & with satisfaction. Dr. Kinaston wrote
mee, that Dr. Clarke has taken the Direction of the Affair and I shall Obey his
Orders. Mr. Gibson has been at Drs. Commons already." I am here imured in
yr. Service (and shall Let none See my Face but Mr. Gibson)." I attended
Mr. Gibson the third time On Thursday; and am Dismissed, to return to Sunbury
next week ... You will see an intire Obedience to the College
Commands and Dr. Clark's Designing, With Due Respects to all-If the Original
fails, may There bee ye Truest Copy of,
Yr. most humble Servant, Nath Lloyd.
These
letters show conclusively that the All Souls portrait was painted by Thomas
Gibson and not, as Mrs. Poole suggested, by Sir James Thornhill." The fact
that the full length portraits of the Founder and Colonel Codrington were
painted by Thornbill perhaps led Mrs. Poole to believe that of Lloyd was by the
same hand. The final confirmation is Thomas Gibson's signature and the date
1734 that appears half-way up the portrait to the left of the back of the cha
ir. The portrait is mentioned by George Vertue in his otebooks. 'A whole lenght
of Sr. Nath Lloyd for Queens College Oxon by Mr. T. Gibson.'734·'"
However, Vertue was mistaken in believing the portrait was destined for
Quern's-a college with which Lloyd had no affiliations. The choice of Thomas
Gibson (1680?-1751) as the artist is perhaps a result of his earlier connection
with Oxford. Vertue notes in July 1732: , Mr. Gibson removed to Oxford-for some
time.'" Mrs. Poole mentions portraits by Gibson in six other Oxford
colleges. He also seems to be the type of painter that might appeal to J
8th-century dons. , Mr. Thomas Gibson .. . many years courted & caressed
for his excellent skill in painting of portraits true drawing and just
likeness. alwayes exact. he alwayes practizd a correct & firm manner of
drawing. as he rose to fame he still modestly continued the same price for ltis
pictures.
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Sir Nathaniel Lloyd with Trinity Hall in the background.
previously attrib. James Thornhill (1675 - 1734), but more likely Gibson.
Oil on Canvas.
152.4 x 101.6 cms.
Lincoln College, Oxford.
Image courtesy Art UK.
This portrait has a view, not of the Wharton building, but of the Hall range of the Front
Court of Trinity Hall. Sir Nathaniel, who died on 30 March 1741,'. left in his
will £3,000 to Trinity Hall' to raise the Hall [to] conform to the Chapel then
on the North [side].'.'"
The refacing of the walls of the Hall in Ketton
stone, the building of the cupola and the insertion of sash windows to match
those already completed in the rest of the Front Court was carried out by Essex
and Burrough in 1742." Therefore the buildings shown in the Lincoln
portrait were completed after Lloyd's death and this suggests that the portrait
is a posthumous copy perhaps by Gibson himself, who lived on until 1751.
It
is, however, possible that the portrait was painted earlier and the view of the
Hall range added at a
later date.
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Sir Nathaniel Lloyd
Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
This portrait was first mentioned by Samuel Warren in 1742. Describing the new interior
of the hall he writes: 'the hanging at the upper end taken away and an enriched
baldachin with a Portrait of Sir Nath. Lloyd were set up in its stead.'
The
facades of 1728-9 of Front Court represent a substantial benefaction from Sir
Nathaniel Lloyd,
who
presided over the College from 1710 to 1735. Lloyd, came to Cambridge from
Oxford and
arrived
with a reputation for being difficult, haughty and overbearing. And he was all
those things.
A
rich man and a successful civil lawyer [explained below], he practised all the
arts of blackmail
which
the wealthy employ to bend institutions to their wills. Lloyd was a Fellow of
All Souls, Oxford, and,
as Charles Crawley put it, “after bombarding the Warden with letters, he was
allowed to retain his
Fellowship at All Souls on becoming Master here, an outrageous abuse.”28 Lloyd
took a robust view
of giving. He had been an undergraduate at Lincoln College, Oxford, and in 1735
gave them the
sum of £250 .
In his will he wrote “it not
being laid out as I
directed - so no more from me.” He was equally difficult with the Oxford
College All Souls to whom
he bequeathed £1,000 “to finish the North Pile, or,
if finished, towards
completing the library”.
All three of his colleges took pains to have his
portrait painted and to be
nice to him in other ways. Lloyd was not fooled. On his large marble monument
in Trinity Hall Chapel
he had inscribed in Latin: “epitaphs should be truthful; telling lies is
wicked. This place is holy;
go and tell lies outside.”
Like
many benefactors before and since, he was careful with his money and knew
exactly what he
wanted.
In 1728-9 he concocted a deal worthy of the best modern campaign director. He
gave £1,000
pounds
to the College in return for an annuity of £50 so that they could start to
replace the gothic
frontage
in Front Court with the latest sash windows and ashlar facings. When he died,
he left a
further
£3,000 to remodel the Hall completely and to extend the College to the Cam,
knocking down
the
Old Library and flattening the gardens along the way. The plans had been drawn
by Messers
James
Burroughs and James Essex, fashionable architects of the time, to whom we owe
Clare Chapel,
the
only chapel in the University where, I am assured, it is impossible to pray to
a personal God.
The
great inflation of the eighteenth century, not the aesthetic reservations of
the Fellowship, saved
the
Old Library and the Fellows’ Garden. Lloyd’s £3,000 pounds proved insufficient
for the scheme
and
other benefactions came with strings. What was done was considered by
contemporaries to be
an
improvement. William Warren, who was a Fellow and Bursar from 1712 to 1745,
tells us that the
former
dining hall was “one of the most ancient buildings at present remaining in the
University...
roofed
with old oak beams, very black and dismal from the Charcoal which is burnt in
the middle
of
the Hall and over it an old awkward kind of Cupolo to let out the smoak”.
Lloyd’s
legacy allowed the College to build the eighteenth century dining chamber, light
and airy,
its
fire place modern and equipped with a good draught. The ceiling must have been
white and
curled
with those vines, tendrils and sheaves of grain so beloved of the eighteenth
century. It was an
expression
of the age of reason. Its length was twice its width, and even today one can
recapture its
proportions
by walking ten paces from High Table so that the fireplace sits in the middle
of the wall,
where
it was intended.
By the 1890s, undergraduate numbers had grown beyond the
capacity of Lloyd’s
space, so the college engaged Messers Grayson and Ould to enlarge the Hall.
They moved Lloyd’s
eighteenth century reredos with its coupled Corinthian columns further to the
east, and, as Pevsner
puts it, “unfortunately and incomprehensibly - a Tudor roof was substituted for
the eighteenth
century ceiling.
This information copied from -
https://www.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Portraits-Booklet.pdf
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The Bust cast by John Cheere in the Library.
All Photographs above taken by the author in difficult circumstances.
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Image below supplied by the Librarian at All Souls.
