Thomas Ellerby

Thomas Ellerby (10 January 1797 - 4 April 1861) was an English portrait artist whose work included 72 paintings chosen for hanging at The Royal Academy of Art ’s exhibitions from 1821 until 1857. He remained active until the end of his life.

Early life and career

Ellerby was born at Low Pasture Farm, Welburn in North Yorkshire, close to Kirbymoorside.(2)<PR/KRD Kirkdale Parish Records Register of Baptisms 1579 -1945 North Yorkshire Records Office ref name=:2> The second of three sons from the first marriage of his father, Ralph, a farmer and tanner who had married Ann, the daughter of the antiquarian rector William Kay of All Saints’, Nunnington, North Yorkshire. Following the second marriage of Ellerby’s father to Hannah Blenkhorn in 1802, two step sisters were born.

By the age of 24, Ellerby had made his way to London to an address in Hatton Gardens and had his first painting accepted by the R.A. In 1824, a second exhibit at the academy’s exhibition confirmed he had moved to live at 7 Newman Street and had begun a relationship with the North Yorkshire born John Jackson R.A. who would become his mentor and life long friend. The same year, Ellerby began to exhibit at the Royal Academy.(3) < The Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions: A Chronicle 1769 -2018 Chronicle250.com ref name=:3>

In March, 1825, Ellerby was enrolled at the Royal Academy as a student alongside others who were considerably younger. No records exist to indicate how long he remained a student of the School of Painting.(4)< RAA/KEE/!/!/2 Register of Admission of Students March 1825 -July 1890 ref name=:4>

By 1835 Ellerby had travelled to Italy to continue his studies of the masters of classical painting and on his return he included genre paintings alongside portraits. Sometime during the 1840s his work earned him the acknowledgement that he was becoming the “painter of the Peak”, (the Peak District of Derbyshire), when he painted the Sixth Duke of Devonshire of Chatsworth.(5) Ellerby’s portrait of Joseph Paxton is now in the possession of the Royal Horticultural Society’s archive at Kew.

For many years Ellerby lived, worked and exhibited in the North of England, basing himself and his family in Newcastle during which time he completed a depiction of a moment during The Battle of Waterloo. Returning to London in 1841, he moved into the new housing development of Victoria Grove, Kensington and established his professional address as 34, Gerrard Street.

Proposed for admission as an Academician on at least two occasions, Ellerby remained in demand as an artist without achieving such an acknowledgement by The Royal Academy.  Newspapers and accounts of exhibitions record many of the portraits completed during his life. Art UK in 2021 recorded six. Others remain in private collections, as well as one housed at Hardwick Hall, one in the Royal Academy and others in art galleries and civic building throughout the country.

Family and Later Life

In his private life, Ellerby was married twice. His first wife Harriet Clarkson died  five years after their marriage, when she was killed in 1831 in a “fall from a carriage”.(6)<PR/EAS 1/9 St. Agatha's Burial Register Easby Abbey December 1831. North Yorkshire Record Office ref name=:6> The second marriage in 1835 was to the daughter of a London stockbroker, Edward Jenkyns. This marriage to Emily Waring Jenkyns, who was sixteen years his junior, having given birth to 3 sons and 3 daughters, ended with her death in 1848 from a heart related condition. (7)<Emily Waring Ellerby July - Sept.1848 Strand London,U.K. Vol.1 page 309 ref name=:7> Ellerby died in 1861 in Retford, Nottinghamshire as a result of bronchitis and severe burns (8) < Thomas Ellerby April - June 1861 East Retford Nottinghamshire U.K.Vol.7b page 7 ref name=:8>and was interred four days later in an unmarked grave in the town’s cemetery (9)< Records for the cemetery Retford, Nottinghamshire. Section B Grave number H65 NCC/BDC Ref. UPG47 1854 -1890s & c.1950s.ref name=:9>.

Collections

Ellerby's work is included in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Laing Art Gallery, the Ferens Art Gallery, the Bradford Museums and Galleries, the York Art Gallery, and the Royal Academy of Arts.