Captain Sir Thomas Fellowes (1778-1853)

Half-length, small-format oil painting, showing the sitter facing out to the viewer in captain's full-dress uniform 1833-43, wearing the orders of a Companion of the Bath and the foreign knightly orders of King Carlos III of Spain, the French Legion d'Honneur, of St Anne of Russia and the Redeemer of Greece.

Fellowes was one of a variously talented family of whom some account is given in relation to MNT0202, a miniature of his brother William Dorset Fellowes. He first served as a midshipman in the East India Company, then entered the Navy as a master's mate. Promoted lieutenant in 1803 and captain in 1811 he spent the rest of the Napoleonic War in small ships. In 1827, commanding the 'Dartmouth', he led the fireships at the Battle of Navarino against the Turks, and saved the French flagship 'La Sirene' from being burnt. He was knighted on return to England in 1828 and was Rear-Admiral of the White at the time of his death.

This portrait was purchased for the Museum by Sir James Caird in 1936, from the same member of Fellowes family from whom he previously obtained the miniature mentioned above. It was then unattributed but is identified as by Henry Wyatt (1794-1840), and dated 1836, in the NMM 'Preliminary Catalogue' of oil portraits, 1961.

Object Details

ID: BHC2687
Collection: Fine art
Type: Painting
Display location: Not on display
Creator: Wyatt, Henry
Date made: Early 19th century; 1836
People: Fellowes, Thomas
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection
Measurements: Frame: 360 mm x 307 mm x 64 mm; Painting: 406 mm x 254 mm