Late 18th Century Oil Portrait of Major Sir Charles Shipley (1755-1815) Govenor of Grenada & After Studio of John Eckstein Original Gilt Gesso Frame 59 X 46 Ins

SHIPLEY, Sir CHARLES (1755–1815), general, and governor of Grenada, West Indies, was the son of Richard Shipley of Stamford, Lincolnshire, and of Copt Hall, Luton, Bedfordshire, a captain of cavalry, by his wife Jane, daughter of Robert Rudyerd, of Wormley, Hertfordshire. The latter was great-grandson and representative of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd [q. v.] of West Woodhay, Berkshire. Charles Shipley was born at Copt Hall on 18 Feb. 1755. On the death of his mother's only brother, Captain Benjamin Rudyerd of the Coldstream guards,his mother became sole heiress of the families of Maddox and Rudyerd.

On 1 April 1771, after passing through the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, Shipley received a commission as ensign and practitioner engineer. In the following year he went to Minorca. On 4 March 1776 he was promoted to be lieutenant and sub-engineer. He returned to England in 1778, and was stationed at Gravesend as engineer on the staff under Colonel Debbieg.

From 1780 to 1783 he served in the Leeward Islands, and in 1788 he again went to the West Indies and was stationed at Antigua. Early in 1792 he returned to England to be tried by court-martial for disobedience to regulations in that he employed his own negroes in Antigua on government fortification work. The court sat at the Horse Guards from 23 Feb. to 1 March, found Shipley guilty, and sentenced him to be suspended from rank and pay for 12 months.

On 15 Aug. 1793 Shipley was promoted to be captain.At the solicitation of Sir John Vaughan, commander-in-chief in the West Indies, he again applied to be sent thither, and embarked in November with his family in the government storeship Woodley. After leaving Plymouth severe storms compelled them to put into Gibraltar and Cadiz,and when at length they arrived within a few miles of Barbados, they were captured by the French corvette Perdrix. The prisoners were confined in hulks at Guadeloupe,but Shipley's wife was set free, and eventually managed to extort the liberation of her husband from the French republican general, Victor Hugues.On 6 May 1795 Shipley was promoted to be major in the army.

In July 1815 Shipley declined promotion out of the corps of royal engineers.Ever careless of personal exposure, excessive fatigue at the attack on Guadeloupe brought on an illness which ended in his death at his seat of government at Grenada on 30 Nov. 1815. He was buried in the church of St. George's, Grenada, amid the regret of all classes.

Shipley married at Gravesend, in May 1780, Mary, daughter of James Teale, by his wife Mary, daughter of Dr. Ralph Blomer, prebendary of Canterbury. Lady Shipley died at Boulogne (where she was assigned a residence by Louis XVIII in consideration of her husband's services in the French West Indies) on 6 Aug. 1820, and was buried in the English burial-ground there; her remains were removed and reinterred in the cloisters of Canterbury Cathedral. Their youngest daughter, Elizabeth Cole (d. 1828), married in 1809 Henry David Erskine, twelfth earl of Buchan.

ABOUT THE ARTIST(Studio of)

Johann or John Eckstein (1736- 27 June 1817), a German modeller and painter, lived in the 18th century, and studied at the Royal Academy in London, where he spent the greater part of his life. He stayed some time at Potsdam, and was practising in Birmingham in 1792. In 1796 he painted The Soldier's Return, and a Family Gathering. The Berlin Museum has two beautiful reliefs, signed J. E., which are said to be by this artist. He left London for the United States, and died in Havana in 1817.

CONDITION:

Evidence of an old relining with repair using a substantial heavy canvas material and signs of ample recleaning with thinned areas of surface paint,plus small signs of surface degredation of the old varnish.

Still in very respectable order for the age and best left as is,ready to hang on wall.

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