Wyndham House painting

This remarkable picture was sent to me by the new owner of Wyndham House in Church Stowe, which is the former Rectory where Charles Crawley lived for 50 years. A copy of this painting has apparently stayed with the house through many owners.

The picture shows Rev. Charles Crawley asleep at the dining room table while two women work on their needlework. I believe that it was painted by Edward Grimes, brother of Eliza Katherine Grimes, my great great grandmother. The details of the dining room are completely accurate, as the room is almost identical today. The arch over the window has been removed but the one beside the fireplace is still exactly as it appears in the painting.

It’s difficult to determine who the women are. Mary Crawley died in 1819, six years before Eliza’s marriage, so it’s unlikely that Edward Grimes would have been visiting Stowe during her lifetime.

Portrait of Dr. John Lloyd

Rev. John Lloyd D.D.
1713-1788
Rector of Stowe Nine-Churches

Dr. John Lloyd was the brother of Susannah Lloyd, mother of Rev. Charles Crawley, Rector of Stowe-Nine-Churches.

This portrait was painted by William Hogarth in 1738, while Lloyd was curate of St. Mildred’s, Bread Street, London (which was destroyed in the blitz in 1941). John Lloyd’s father had commissioned Hogarth to paint the two famous wall murals for St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. In appreciation Hogarth offered to paint his portrait, but Lloyd Sr. chose to have his son sit for the painting instead.

This painting was owned by several generations of the Crawley family and hung in the Rectory at Stowe-Nine-Churches for many years and then in the Rectory at Heyford until the death of Rev. John Lloyd Crawley in 1895. The portrait now hangs in the collection of  the Yale  Center for  British Art (Paul Mellon Collection) in New Haven, Connecticut.

Introduction

The Descent of Edward Robert John Crawley

Welcome to my blog. I have been digging around in the Crawley family history and the bits and pieces of information are threatening to swamp my filing system. So until I figure out a better way, I will add information here as I come across it, and hope that in the future I can find a logical way to organize it all into one place. So this will be a grab-bag… you never know what you might see next. There will be no logical system, topics will jump from person to person, place to place and century to century. I will include research from other people and links to interesting websites and books worth reading. I’ll store it all here for now and organize it later. Enjoy.

BTW… don’t believe the dates on these posts. Blogs are programmed to always show the most recent post at the top. Sometimes I change the date to achieve my preferred order. There will likely be new posts appearing in old months, so be sure to look back through the archives.

If you can add anything, I’d love to hear from you. You can contact me at lcrawley(at)littlemore.ca or linda.crawley(at)icloud.com

Linda Crawley