PORTER, SIR ROBERT KER, K.C.H. 



PORTER, GEORGE RICHARDSON. 



918 



tradition connected with the spot where now stands University Col- 

 lege and Hospital, and which was almost immediately dramatised. 

 After a considerable interval, during which she contributed largely to 

 periodical works, among other things a biography of Colonel Denham, 

 the African traveller, in the ' Naval and Military Journal,' she published 

 anonymously in 1831 'Sir Edward Seaward's Diary,' in which she so 

 successfully imitated the style and adhered so closely to the manners 

 and history of the period, that it was for a considerable time doubted 

 whether or not it was a fiction. This was her last work. 



PORTER, SIR ROBERT KER, K.C.H., was born at Durham about 

 1775, but his early boyhood was passed in Edinburgh, whither his 

 mother removed upon the death of her husband, who was an officer in 

 the English army. He was the brother of Anna Maria Porter and 

 Jane Porter. His strong natural disposition for the arts was first 

 called into activity by the celebrated Flora Macdonald. Robert, then 

 a boy of only nine or ten years of age, was spending the evening with 

 his family in the house of that extraordinary lady, who, perceiving his 

 fixed attention to a certain battle-piece, explained to him that it was 

 one of the battles of '45 ; and she proceeded to describe the battle in 

 all its details in such glowing terms that the boy's blood kindled, and 

 from that time he was incessantly sketching battles. His mother was 

 induced by bis evidence of talent to take him to London, about 1790, 

 to West, the president of the Royal Academy, who is said to have been 

 so much struck with the spirit of the boy's sketches that he procured 

 his admission as a student into the Royal Academy. In 1792 he had 

 already evinced such progress, or been so recommended to the parish 

 authorities, as to receive a commission to paint ' Moses ' and ' Aaron ' 

 for Shoreditch church. In 1794 he presented an altar-piece of 'Christ 

 allaying the Storm 'to the Roman Catholic chapel at Portsea; and 

 in 1798 another, of 'St. John preaching in the Wilderness,' to St. 

 John's College, Cambridge. His moat extraordinary productions how- 

 ever were his great battles. In the year 1800 he exhibited an immense 

 picture, 120 feet long, in the Lyceum Great Room, representing the 

 storming of Seringapatam. He is said to have been only six weeks in 

 painting the picture, and yet the execution was in no part neglected. 

 This picture was burnt in the fire which consumed a friend's warehouse 

 where the painter deposited it before he left England to go to Russia; 

 but the sketches exist, and were sold at the sale of Sir Robert's effects 

 in 1843. Another great battle was the ' Siege of Acre,' exhibited also 

 in the Lyceum Room : he published at the same time a book entitled 

 ' The Siege of Acre, chiefly intended as a Companion to the great 

 Historical Picture painted by Robert Ker Porter, now exhibiting at 

 the Ljct-um, 1801;' it contains spirited etchings of the picture. These 

 were followed by a third great battle-piece, ' Agincourt," which he 

 presented to the city of London : it was hung up in the Guildhall a 

 few years ago. He painted also pictures of the 'Battle of Alexandria ' 

 and tbe ' Death of Sir Kalph Abercromby.' In 1804 he went to Russia, 

 and was appointed historical painter to the emperor. While he was in 

 St. Petersburg he gained the affections of the Princess Mary, the 

 daughter of the Prince Theodore de Sherbatoff of Russia, and the 

 marriage was arranged ; but some ministerial difft rences caused him 

 to leave Russia : in tbe year 1811 however the marriage took place, 

 and the princess survived him. He painted at St. Petersburg, on the 

 walla of tbe Admiralty, ' Peter the Great planning the Port of Cronstadt 

 and St. Petersburg.' After his return to England, about 1806, he 

 published ' Travelling Sketches in Russia and Sweden.' In 1808 he 

 accompanied Sir John Moore's expedition to the Peninsula, and 

 attended the campaign throughout, up to the closing catastrophe of 

 the battle of Corunna. On his return to England he published some 

 anonymous letters from Spain and Portugal. 



After his return from a second visit to Russia, after his marriage, 

 he published in 1813 'An Account of the Russian Campaign,' and he 

 was knighted by the Prince Regent in the same year. He executed 

 many sketches of tho campaign in Portugal, and some Cossak affairs. 

 From 1817 to 1820 he was occupied in his extensive travels in Asia, 

 of which he published a detailed account in 1821-22, 'Travels in 

 Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, &c., during the years 

 1817-18-19-20, with numerous engravings of Portraits, Costumes, 

 Antiquities, &c.,' 2 vols. 4to. In this work are many excellent designs 

 in outline from the fine characteristic ancient sculptures of Nakshi 

 Roustam, Nakshi Hajab, Shiraz, and Persepolis. 



In 1832 Sir Robert Ker Porter was created Knight Commander of 

 the Order of Hanover by William IV. ; he was appointed a few years 

 before British consul at Venezuela, where he resided at Caracas until 

 1841, and he painted while there three sacred pictures, which were 

 his last principal works ; he also made numerous sketches of scenery 

 ill the meanwhile. The firot of these three pictures was ' Christ at the 

 Last Supper blessing the Cup,' painted as an altar-piece for the chapel 

 of the Protestant burying-ground, of which he had procured the 

 establishment; but he removed it afterwards on account of the heat 

 of the sun, and put up in its stead a tablet with the ten commandments 

 in tbe native language. The second was ' Our Saviour blessing tbe 

 Little Child,' and the third and last an ' Ecce Homo.' He painted 

 also a portrait of General Bolivar. In 1841 he paid bis last visit to 

 St. Petersburg, and the cold winter appears to have been too much 

 for his constitution, then inured to the warm climate of Venezuela. 

 On the aid of May, on bis return from court, where he had been to 

 pay his respects to the emperor, previous to his return to England, he 



BIOO. DIV. VOL. IV. 



was struck with apoplexy, and he expired on the following morning, 

 May 4, 1842. 



PORTER, GEORGE RICHARDSON, was born in London in 1792. 

 Ke was educated at Merchant Taylors' school, where he became 

 intimate with the Ricarclo family, and subsequently married the sister 

 of David Ricardo. His father, a merchant in London, designed him 

 for his own profession, and he became a sugar-broker. He was unsuc- 

 cessful in trade; but his commercial knowledge was made available 

 for literary objects. In 1830 he published a work, 'On the Cultivation 

 of the Sugar-Cane.' A paper on ' Life Assurance ' was published in 

 the 'Companion to the Almanac for 1831.' In the same year 'A 

 Treatise on the Origin, Progressive Improvement, and Present State 

 of the Silk Manufacture,' was issued as a volume of Lardner's 'Cabinet 

 Cyclopaedia,' for which series, in 1842, he wrote a similar treatiee, ' On 

 the Manufacture of Porcelain and Glass." His paper in the ' Com- 

 panion to the Almanac,' of which Mr- Charles Knight was the projector 

 and editor, led to Mr. Porter's official appointment in the Board of 

 Trade. In an article in the ' Gentleman's Magazine,' for October 1852, 

 the circumstance is thus correctly stated : " Mr. Knight was written 

 to by the late Lord Auckland, then president of the Board of Trade, 

 requesting that he would wait on that minister at his office at his 

 earliest convenience, and was asked at the interview, whether he would 

 undertake the task of arranging and digesting for the board the mass 

 of information contained in blue books and parliamentary returns ; in 

 short, if he would do for the Board of Trade what Mr. Porter has since 

 done so well, and what Mr. Fonblanque continues to do for the same 

 office, with the same accuracy and success. Mr. Knight hesitated. 

 The engagement, should he accept it, must necessarily interfere in a 

 great measure with his business as a publisher. In this dilemma, he 

 consulted a distinguished friend, and by that friend was advised to wait 

 on Lord Auckland, and decline the office. This he did ; and at Lord 

 Auckland's request, he named Mr. Porter, to whom the office was given." 

 The first appointment of Mr. Porter at the Board of Trade took place 

 in 1832. It was an experimental appointment at a small salary. 

 When the statistical department of the Board of Trade was fully 

 organised, Mr. Porter was placed at its head. In 1840 he was ap- 

 pointed in addition, senior member of the railway department of the 

 board, then newly constituted to meet the growing increase of projects 

 in that direction. His able reports, which were laid before parliament, 

 were of the utmost value, and were properly appreciated by official 

 men and by the public. For his labours in this department he had an 

 additional salary of 200?. a year. On the retirement of Mr. McGregor, 

 as one of the secretaries of the Board of Trade, in 1841, Mr. Porter 

 was appointed to succeed him, at the salary of \500l. a year. His 

 labours in all these positions were increasing and successful. He had 

 a genius for tabulating the most incongruous materials, and he formed 

 the model, which he was always improving, of the returns which are 

 now periodically issued from the Board of Trade with so much 

 advantage to the commerce of the country. But hia active mind was 

 not confined to his official duties. In 1833 he published 'The Tropical 

 Agriculturist." In 1834 he exerted himself in the founding of the 

 Statistical Society, of which he was for a considerable time one of the 

 vice-presidents, and on the resignation of Mr. Hallam in 1841 ho was 

 chosen treasurer. To the ' Journal ' of the Society he was a frequent 

 contributor. In 1836 he published 'The Progress of the Nation, in 

 its social and commercial relations, from the beginning of the Nine- 

 teenth Century to the Present Time. Sections I. and II., Population 

 and Production.' Sections III. and IV., ' Interchange, and Revenue 

 and Expenditure,' followed in 1838 ; and the work was completed in 

 3 vols. 12mo, by Sections V. to VIII., including 'Consumption, Accu- 

 mulation, Moral Progress, Colonial and Foreign Dependencies.' This 

 valuable work necessarily admits of constant correction and new 

 matter, and other editions were issued each in a large 8vo volume, in 

 1847 and 1851. The mass of information clearly set forth in this work 

 presents the best and most complete picture of the progress and state 

 of the country for the period of which it treats. On the establishment 

 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he became 

 one of its most active members, always attended its annual meetings, 

 and usually read a paper to the statistical section. Mr. Porter had 

 been ever a firm and unwavering advocate of tho doctrines of free- 

 trade, and in 1849 he published a translation, with notes, of F. Bastiat's 

 Popular Fallacies regarding General Interests,' in 16mo. In the samo 



* _ *T. .. n .1 / 1 * -11 _ 1M 1 _C 



quently , , 



George Long, ho wrote the 'Geography of Great Britain. Part I., 

 England and Wales,' published by the Society for the Diffusion of 

 Useful Knowledge. This was his last unofficial labour. Sedentary 

 pursuits had induced a bad habit of body, and the sting of a gnat pro- 

 duced inflammation of the leg, from the consequences of which he died 

 on September 3, 1855, at Tonbridge Wells, whither he had gone in 

 hopes of relief. 



* SARAH PORTER, his wife, has been also a writer. The work by 

 which she is best known is ' Conversations on Arithmetic,' published 

 in 12mo in 1835. This was re-issued iu a modified form in 1852, 

 under the title of 'Rational Arithmetic.' Mrs. Porter is also the 

 authoress of a prize essay, published in 1839, ' On the Expediency and 

 Means of elevating the Profession of tho Educator in Society.' 



