Captain John Stanley

Captain John Stanley (18 January 1750 – 18 June 1783) was a British Army officer who served in the American War of Independence.

Biography Born on 18 January 1750, son of Revd Dr Thomas Stanley, whose cousin was the 11th Earl of Derby, and his wife Betty (d. 1780), daughter and coheir of John Shaw of York. His eldest brother was Colonel Thomas Stanley, who later became a long-serving Member of Parliament for Lancashire. Stanley was educated at Manchester Grammar School.

As historian Norman S. Poser argues, political and military power in eighteenth-century Britain was largely controlled by an oligarchy of about two hundred immensely wealthy landowning families. Advancement to senior positions in politics or the army typically required belonging to—or marrying into—one of these families. Stanley's connection to the prominent Stanley family (the Earls of Derby) significantly shaped his career. As a cousin of Lady Charlotte (Stanley) Burgoyne—wife of Lieutenant-general John Burgoyne—this family tie was the primary reason for his appointment as Burgoyne's aide-de-camp. This relationship underpinned his service throughout the American War of Independence and remained a constant in his career, continuing when Burgoyne was later appointed Commander-in-Chief in Ireland in 1782.

Military career Stanley's military service began in 1775, when he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 20th Regiment of Foot. His rise was rapid: on 9 March 1776, he was promoted to captain. That same May, he was sent to Quebec to serve as aide-de-camp to Burgoyne, a position secured through family ties—Burgoyne had married Stanley's cousin. R. W. Apple Jr. called them "the most important battle ever fought in the world within the last 1,000 years." Map of Burgoyne's 1777 campaign, showing the movements of the British army and principal actions. Drawn by Mr. Medcalfe and engraved by William Faden, 1780. The first Battle of Saratoga was on September 19, 1777: the Battle of Freeman's Farm. Burgoyne personally accompanied the centre column, commanded by Brigadier General James Hamilton, together with Stanley and his other aides-de-camp. Stanley's regiment, the 20th Regiment of Foot, formed part of the centre column. As Burgoyne’s aide-de-camp, Stanley was constantly exposed to the fighting; at one point, a sharpshooter’s fire was so close that Burgoyne himself was believed to have been killed, when the victim was actually an aide beside him. At Freeman's Farm, Burgoyne's force of about 7,200 men faced an American force of about 9,000. This was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the war especially for Stanley's battalion.

Positioned on the left flank of Brigadier General Hamilton’s central column with the 20th Regiment of Foot, the regiment faced heavy pressure from American riflemen. When the British center under the 62nd Regiment began to waver, elements of the 20th, personally led forward by General Phillips, delivered a timely reinforcement that stabilized the line and prevented a breakthrough.

In the memoir of Roger Lamb, a British soldier present at the battle, he wrote:

'In this battle an unusual number of officers fell, as our army abounded with young men of respectability at this time, who after several years of general peace anterior to the American revolution, were attracted to the profession of arms. Three subalterns of the 20th regiment on this occasion, the oldest of whom did not exceed the age of seventeen years, were buried together'

One 20th Regiment soldier remembered that, as the hours passed, the "ground flowed with English and American blood, and the dead bodies of friends and enemies covered each other" on the contested field.

General Burgoyne had gained the field of battle but suffered nearly 600 casualties. The most by the 20th Regiment of Foot including Stanley who was severely wounded and taken prisoner. Battle of Saratoga (Freeman’s Farm), 19 September 1777 , contemporary German engraving by Johann Martin Will, published in Augsburg (ca. 1777). Captain John Stanley, aide-de-camp to General Burgoyne and officer in the 20th Regiment of Foot, was severely wounded and taken prisoner during this battle. Stanley was one of the notable losses among Burgoyne’s staff, while fellow aide-de-camp Sir Francis Clerke was mortally wounded at Bemis Heights. Total casualties for the battalion were 116, all incurred in the first battle. According to the Admissions Register of Manchester School, at the Battles of Saratoga "the 20th Regiment is said to have distinguished itself by great gallantry".

Prior to the formal surrender of Burgoyne’s army on 17 October 1777, the colours of the 20th Regiment of Foot were burnt to prevent their falling into American hands.

More than fifty years after the battle, G. R. Gleig's historical novel The Chelsea Pensioners (1829) recalled the regiment's conduct at Freeman's Farm, describing the 20th as having "covered themselves with glory" and as having behaved "with a degree of gallantry almost unprecedented."

Gainsborough portrait A portrait of Stanley by Thomas Gainsborough was painted several months prior to Stanley's departure for Quebec.

The portrait is feigned oval. Stanley is shown in the post-1768 uniform of the Regiment of the 20th Foot (the coat with yellow facing and coat buttons moulded with 'XX' decoration, and a single epaulette on the right shoulder) is shown in three-quarter pose looking to the left. The ‘XX’ on the buttons reflects the regiment’s designation in Roman numerals, which gave rise to its long-standing nickname “The Two Tens”. The single epaulette on the right shoulder was the prescribed insignia for a captain of a battalion company under the Clothing Warrant of 19 December 1768. He wears a powdered bagwig (the long hair at the nape enclosed in a black silk or taffeta bag secured with a visible black ribbon), a fashionable style for officers and gentlemen of the period, his right hand is tucked into his waistcoat, and he holds his black cocked hat beneath his left arm.

The portrait exemplifies Gainsborough’s distinctive approach to military portraiture. The conventional pose of the right hand tucked into the waistcoat conveys composure and self-command, a gesture frequently employed in eighteenth-century portraiture. The hat held beneath the left arm follows a standard genteel convention of the period, prescribed in contemporary etiquette manuals as part of a composed and refined male posture.

Military and naval portraits formed a relatively small part of Gainsborough's output. Katherine Gazzard notes that he did not produce a large number of military portraits, although he attracted a small but steady stream of commissions from mostly aristocratic military and naval officers throughout his career.

Gazzard further argues that, in the late 1770s, Gainsborough's military and naval portraits increasingly adopted a more sentimental mode, depicting young officers in pensive poses that emphasised private feeling alongside public duty. Painted in 1776, Stanley's portrait can be understood within this development: its composed pose, genteel manner, and emphasis on self-command present the sitter as both a military officer and a cultivated gentleman, rather than through martial action alone. The resulting image is therefore likely to give a reliable impression of Stanley’s appearance shortly before he left for Quebec in 1776, and (given his youth) also of how he would have looked at the Battle of Freeman’s Farm the following year.

One year after painting Stanley, Gainsborough returned to exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1777, his first appearance there in five years. Contemporary commentary in the London Chronicle described him as "one of the first portrait-painters in the Kingdom", adding that "he is inferior to none in the most essential requisites of his art, but perhaps he is superior to all others in the ease and richness of his drapery". Crowds at the National Gallery, London, viewing Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy in 1922, shortly before the painting left for the United States. The event underscores the strong public and market interest in Gainsborough at the time Knoedler handled the Stanley portrait. Before its acquisition by Knoedler, the portrait belonged to a Revd Patterson, who had retired to Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. It was purchased at an ironmonger's in the town by art dealer Robert Partridge (1861-1932) for £5 (information from the Frank Simpson Papers). Knoedler purchased it on 30 November 1923. Portrait of Captain John Stanley (1776) and Sir Joshua Reynolds' Portrait of John Burgoyne (1766) were both sold by Knoedler. The Frick bought the Burgoyne portrait from Knoedler in 1943; it had previously been in the collection of J. Pierpont Morgan Sr. In 1929, five years after selling the Stanley portrait, Knoedler purchased another military portrait by Gainsborough—the full-length Portrait of Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Craggs-Nugent (1764)—at auction in London for $74,095, a record price at the time for any Gainsborough portrait of a man.

Following the death of Mary Viscountess Eccles in 2003, the portrait was offered in the Christie's Important British and Irish Art sale of 9 June 2004. In its press release for the sale, Christie's presented it as “the elegant portrait by Thomas Gainsborough of Captain John Stanley in military uniform,” without referring to the painting’s important place among portraits of the American War of Independence. A condition report by British picture conservator and art historian Sarah Walden assessed the painting as being in excellent condition. Its subsequent ownership and present location are not publicly recorded.

The painting is notable as the only major British portrait by either Gainsborough or Reynolds depicting an officer directly involved in the American War of Independence—in full military uniform and painted in 1776, just before the Battles of Saratoga—that remains in private hands.

Portraits of British officers who served in the American Revolutionary War are exceptionally scarce. Curators at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation have noted that “likenesses of British officers who served in the Revolutionary War are rare,” while Ghislain d’Humières, the foundation’s director, observed that “the faces of early America’s military officers are largely lost to time.”