Thomas Lawrence

Sir Thomas Lawrence was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at the Bear Hotel in the Market Square. At age ten, having moved to Bath, he was supporting his family with his pastel portraits. At 18, he went to London and soon established his reputation as a portrait painter in oils, receiving his first royal commission, a portrait of Queen Charlotte, in 1789. He stayed at the top of his profession until his death, aged 60, in 1830.

13 April 1769

Born on the same birth day (13 April): Col Joye • Félicien David • John Weston (diplomat) • Jordan Silk • Josh Gordon • Kermit Tyler • Klaus Lehnertz • Michael Stuart Brown • Nella Larsen • Philip Norman (author) • Robert Abbe • Robert Orville Anderson • Thomas Percy (bishop of Dromore) • Tommy Raudonikis

Born in the same month (April 1769): Barthélemy Catherine Joubert • Christian Günther von Bernstorff • Jean Lannes • Sir Thomas Hardy, 1st Baronet