Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.19622

    Portrait of Thomas Gale

    Date
    1802
    Sitter
    Thomas Gale (1635 - 1702, British) , Antiquary
    Creator
    Unknown, Engraver
    Sylvester Harding (1745 - 1809, British) , Printer
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 127mm
    width (print): 92mm
    Subject
    Description
    Half-length portrait of Thomas Gale, wearing a wig, robe and bands. The sitter holds a rolled sheet of paper in his left hand. The head is presented with more finished detail than the body, the whole within an oval.

    Plate from a grangerized copy of A history of the Royal Society, with memoirs of the Presidents…by Charles Richard Weld (London, John W. Parker, 1848). In this edition, the original two volumes were extended to eight volumes with the addition of extra-illustrations and documents, by Alexander Meyrick Broadley.

    The print appears at p.328 in volume 3 of the adapted set of Weld’s History. Weld’s text notes the election of Hans Sloane as Royal Society Secretary, in place of Dr. Gale.

    Handwritten inscription below: ‘T. Gale. DD.’. The print has been cropped to the oval and therefore is missing the original printed inscription: ‘From a Drawing in the Pepy’s Collection, at Cambridge. Pub. Jan. 1. 1802. by S. Harding, No.127 Pall Mall’, and a monogram below the oval, ‘S.H.’.

    Thomas Gale (1635/6-1702) British antiquary and Dean of York, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1677. He served as Secretary, 1679-1681.
    Object history
    Print from Charles Richard Weld's A history of the Royal Society, vol. 3... (London, John W. Parker, 1848) grangerized by the writer and collector Alexander Meyrick Broadley (1847–1916) into 8 volumes, adding illustrative material and manuscript items to Weld's text. The books were initially owned by Ludwig Mond FRS (1839–1909), and according to an inscription by his son Robert Ludwig Mond FRS (1867–1938) they were intended for presentation to the Society. This eventually happened in late 1959, the donor being the politician Harry Nathan (1889–1963), Lord Nathan of Churt.
    Related fellows
    Charles Richard Weld (1813 - 1869, British) , Author
    Associated place
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