Attributed to George Frederic Watts, 1817-1904 Portrait of General Sir William Francis Patrick Napier, K.c.b. 1751 - 1860 Oil on Canvas 50 X 40 In. (127 X 101 Cm.)

Attributed to George Frederic Watts, 1817-1904

Portrait of General Sir William Francis Patrick Napier, K.C.B. 1751 - 1860

oil on canvas

50 x 40 in. (127 x 101 cm.)

sold with 6 volumes of the History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France from the Year 1807 to the Year 1814. 6 vols (complete) by Napier, W. F. P. (Major-General Sir William Francis Patrick)

Published by Frederick Warne and Co., London, 1890 " The Chandos Classics" All six volumes in this "Chandos Classics" edition are clean and sound, with slight sunning to spines, lightly bumped spine ends. A definitive study of Napoleon's War in the Iberian Peninsula and the southern parts of France. Part of the Chandos Classics series, there is no date stated, but this edition is believed to have been printed in 1890

Provenance

Elizabeth Marianne Napier, 2nd daughter of the Sitter,who married the 4th Earl of Arran and thence by descent to the Earl and Countess of Arran, Castle Hill, Devon

Notes

Napier, Sir William Francis Patrick (1785–1860), army officer and writer, born at Celbridge, co. Kildare, on 17 December 1785 was third son of Colonel the Hon. George Napier (1751–1804) and his second wife, Sarah (1745–1826), née Lennox, formerly married to Sir Thomas Bunbury. He had four brothers—General Charles James Napier (1782–1853), Lieutenant-General George Thomas Napier (1784–1855), Captain Henry Edward Napier RN (1789–1853), and Richard, QC—as well as a half-sister, Louisa (d. 1854), from his father's first marriage, and three sisters (Emily, Cecilia, and Caroline). The Napiers claimed descent from Scott of Thirlestane and John Napier, the inventor of logarithms; William's mother, daughter of the second duke of Richmond, from Charles II.

Napier spent his youth at Celbridge House, according to his sister Emily attending ‘the village school’ but spending ‘much of his time with a vagabond called Scully … [who was] something of a poacher’ (Bruce, 1.7). From an early age Napier showed pugnacious self-reliance, once effectively wielding a large bag of marbles against a troublesome bully, and, during the 1798 Irish rising, the five Napier boys were armed to defend the family home. William Napier was commissioned second-lieutenant in the Royal Irish Artillery on 14 June 1800, became a lieutenant in the 62nd foot on 18 April 1801, and went on half pay after the peace of Amiens in March 1802. Through its colonel and his uncle, the duke of Richmond, on 22 August 1803 Napier acquired a cornetcy in the Horse Guards, moving as lieutenant on 28 December 1803 to the 52nd light infantry, part of Major-General John Moore's light brigade at Shorncliffe. Impressed by Napier, Moore thereafter took a close interest in his career. Napier nominally secured a company in a West India regiment on 2 June 1804, and shortly afterwards a battalion of reserve. On 11 August he became a captain in the 43rd light infantry at Shorncliffe, when the 43rd had a poor professional reputation. In the words of a fellow officer, showing an aptitude for ‘leaping, running, swimming &c’ and displaying ‘naturally polished, pleasing, gay manners’ (ibid., 1.24), Napier soon transformed his company.

Two months after Napier's father died, in December 1804 Captain Charles Stanhope of the 52nd introduced him to his uncle, William Pitt, though the association had no political effect on Napier. In 1806 Napier went to Ireland to recruit militia volunteers for line regiments. The following year, he and the 43rd sailed with the British expedition to Denmark and fought at Kjöge, before the 43rd returned to Maldon and then Colchester. The 43rd embarked for Corunna on 13 September 1808, on arrival marching inland to Villafranca, where it formed part of the rear-guard covering Moore's retreat to Corunna; Napier spent two days and nights under attack at the Esla River, while his men demolish