Disability in the 18th century – a National Portrait Gallery trail by Jacob Simon
Sir John Fielding (1721-1780), magistrate and social reformer, by Nathaniel Hone, 1762 © National Portrait Gallery, London
Disability is no respecter of person. Those represented on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery and in its collections are among the most celebrated members of British society but among them are many with disabilities. Some are celebrated in literature: Richard III was famously depicted by Shakespeare as ‘Crookback’, while the poet Byron who had a foot disability, or ‘club-foot’, has been vilified as having ‘the face of an angel on a devil’s body’.
