Seeking information on:

   • Portrait of William Southwell by James Lonsdale (1777-1839)

In September 1813 a ”Portrait of Mr. W. Southwell, the inventor of the Patent Square Piano Forte, with additional keys” by the distinguished portrait painter James Lonsdale of 8, Berners Street, London was displayed at the Liverpool Academy of Arts’ Fourth Annual Exhibition in the Union Newsrooms. 

Despite extensive enquiries, we have been unable to identify the present whereabouts of this portrait.

Update 2 September 2013

A recently discovered copy of a diary of Jane Cook, née Robins, a relative by marriage of the ‘Southwell Brothers Photographers Royal’, held in a private archive in America,1 provides fascinating new insights on a number of members of this branch of the Southwell family. Most interesting of all, an entry in 1904 gives not only a description of William Southwell’s appearance in his portrait but its location in that year – extract below:

‘A portrait of him [William Southwell Snr.] still exists, now in the possession of his great grand-daughter Ida Perrin. He looks out from the picture from under a chestnut coloured wig, has an aristocratic nose, and a curved upper lip, features which have re-appeared in several of his descendants.’

Ida Southwell Perrin, née Robins, (1860–1953) was the daughter of Elizabeth Southwell (1825–1908) and Edward Cookworthy Robins (1830–1918), a noted architect of his day. Better remembered today as ‘Mrs Henry Perrin’, Ida is well known in her own right for her exquisite flower paintings as the illustrator of the book British Flowering Plants (1914), Vols I – IV. She was also a talented portrait painter who exhibited at the Royal Academy. Tragically, both her children died in early adulthood in 1919 within a short time of each other and her only direct descendent was a granddaughter, Moyra Perrin (1918–1999). Miss Perrin, a very wealthy lady, died unmarried in London in 1999 and if, as seems likely, she inherited the portrait from her grandmother, it may still have been in her possession at that time. Further investigations are proceeding to explore this line of enquiry, but for the moment at this point the trail runs cold.

If anyone is able to assist us with information on the present whereabouts of this lost Lonsdale portrait of William Southwell we would love to hear from you.