Portrait of Samuel Crompton (1753-1827)

Portrait of Samuel Crompton (1753-1827), about 1857, after Charles Allingham. Oil on canvas in gilt frame. Crompton appears head and shoulders, facing right, with head resting on his right hand. Wearing a dark open jacket and white shirt, against a dark background.

This portrait formed part of the Bennet Woodcroft Bequest, which was among the founding collections of the Science Museum. Woodcroft had developed a 'National Gallery of Portraits of Inventors, Discoverers and Introducers of the Useful Arts’ combining gifts, loans and purchases of portraits, while acting as the first curator of the Patent Museum.

This is a copy in oil after the original by Charles Allingham then in the possession of Mrs John Kennedy, Manchester, and now in the Hall i' th' Wood Museum, Bolton (BOLMG:1902.66.HITW). On 11 April 1860, a photographer employed by Woodcroft to photograph the original at the Kennedy residence reported that he had twice tried and failed to capture the painting because the canvas was so cracked that the face was obliterated.

An engraving of this portrait was made by Thomas Oldham Barlow and included in the Portfolio of 'Portraits of Inventors of Machines for the Manufacture of Textile Fabrics with Memoirs' published by Thomas Agnew & Sons with an introduction by Woodcroft in 1863 (see 1980-840). Text under the print lists the portrait as 'from a photograph of the original picture by Allingham', in Woodcroft's collection.

This copy in oil very likely entered Woodcroft’s collection after 1861. Text beneath Barlow’s print of Crompton states it is ‘from a photograph of the original picture by Allingham’. This is likely the photograph given to Woodcroft by Crompton’s grandson of the same name in March 1860, which Crompton printed from a negative in his possession. If this copy in oil of the original had been in Woodcroft’s collection at the time the engraving was being carried out, Barlow would have likely stated it was from the copy, rather than from a photograph as he did in other examples (1921-1078). It is therefore probable that this copy in oil entered Woodcroft’s collection after Barlow had completed his engraving. The precise circumstances of the copy’s creation and entrance into Woodcroft’s collection remain unclear.

Several other copies of the Allingham original exist. One is in the SMG Collection (1858-77). In 1860 Samuel Crompton (grandson) also had in his possession a copy by ‘Poole of Sheffield’, likely William Poole (c.1798-1888; several portraits by him are held by Museums Sheffield). In correspondence between Crompton and Woodcroft other possible copies are referred to, but the existence of these remains unconfirmed.