Print. Robert Preston (1740-1834) was a London merchant who made a vast fortune through trade in the East Indies, having begun his career as an officer and sea captain in the Company's service. He later moved into shipowning and marine insurance. He owned houses in Woodford, Essex, and one in Downing Street which was later used as the Colonial Office, and in 1800 he inherited the family baronetcy of Valleyfield in West Fife on the death of his elder brother Charles. An MP for Dover (1784-90) and then Cirencester (1792-1806) , he was an Elder Brother of Trinity House, and its Deputy Master (1793-1805) as well as being one of the Directors of Greenwich Hospital from about 1789 until its governance was reformed in 1829. An unaffected and hospitable man, he greatly enjoyed fishing and was substantially responsible for making Thames whitebait dinners fashionable by the annual ones he held for other Directors and friends at Greenwich during his tenure there: this in turn developed into a longer tradition of similar Parliamentary end of session inners at well-known Greenwich taverns, especially 'The Ship' (for Tories) and 'The Trafalgar' (for Whigs), well after his death at the age of 94. This portrait alludes to his seafaring and recent appointment as Deputy Master of Trinity House. He was also painted several times from about 1781 by Johann Zoffany, for whom - and against formal E.I.Co. wishes - he arranged a passage to work in India in one of the Company ships of which he was managing owner, by rating him as a midshipman in it. Gainsborough Dupont was nephew and pupil of Thomas Gainsborough. [amended PvdM 4/19]