William Coningham

William Coningham (26 June 1815 – 20 December 1884) was a British Liberal politician and art collector.

Following education at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, Coningham obtained a commission in the 1st (Royal) Regiment of Dragoons in 1834, but bought himself out in 1836. He married Elizabeth Meyrick in Bath, Somerset, on 12 November 1840.

Friendships and correspondence A keen correspondent, he exchanged a number of letters on spiritual matters with his cousin John Sterling. He was subsequently to edit and publish these as Twelve Letters in 1851. He was also a friend of Thomas Carlyle, and a number of letters between the two survive.

Art collecting Coningham built up a large art collection, principally the work of Italian Old Masters. These included two panels of the Adoring Saints by Lorenzo Monaco, presented to the National Gallery, London in 1848. Other works included Portrait of a Woman by Francesco Montemezzano (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), and Tarquin and Lucretia by Titian (now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). His collection of drawings is now widely scattered with examples in Princeton University Art Museum and elsewhere, but a group are in the British Museum.

The art historian Francis Haskell judged him "an exceptionally cultivated man" and "one of the most successful and discriminating... collectors of Old Masters in the nineteenth century". He failed to be elected and at the next election in 1852 he stood at Westminster, again without success.

By late 1863 it became apparent that Coningham's health was deteriorating. In January of the next year he announced his immediate retirement from the Commons. By 1868 his health had recovered and he attempted to regain his parliamentary seat at Brighton, standing as one of three Liberal candidates for the two seats in the constituency, but without success.

Death He died at his Brighton residence in 1884, aged 69.