Richard Cosway, R.A.

By family descent until the present owner

J. Steegman, A Survey of Portraits in Welsh House, Cardiff 1962, p. 99, no. 61, pl. 19c

Mrs Walker, née Alethea James, was the second wife of Richard Walker (1760-1801) from Liverpool: they married at St Mary’s Walton-on-the-hill, just outside Liverpool in June 1790. Her husband had been married previously, to Martha Wilson, who had died as a result of complications with the birth of their only child, Elizabeth (seen on the left in this drawing). Richard and Alethea Walker had two children of their own: Richard Watt Walker (seen on his mother’s right) and John Watt Walker (seen on her right).

Alethea Walker's husband, Richard, was a highly successful merchant and ship-owner. His business interests were not confined to Liverpool and the couple kept a house in Mayfair, London were they entertained guests from the Prince of Wales downwards. 

Whereas Richard's daughter, Elizabeth Walker, died unmarried in 1804, the two boys married daughters of Henry Swinburne (1743-1803), the celebrated travel writer. In 1814 Richard married Harriett Swinburne (d. 1861), while sometime later John married Carolina Marianna Swinburne (d. 1856). Richard and his wife went to live at Michelgrove in Sussex, an estate that had been acquired by his father in 1800, while in 1818, John Walker bought Purbrook Park in Hampshire from Admiral Lord Keith. 

Another of Henry Swinburne's daughters, Maria Antonia Swinburne, married, as his second wife, Major-General Oliver Robert Jones of Fonmon Castle (b. 1776), an ancestor of the present owner.

We are very grateful to Neil Jeffares for his help when cataloguing this lot.