Foster 627

Captain Benjamin Sydenham (1777-1828), c.1810

A half-length portrait, the body slightly turned to the left, the face looking at the spectator. Sydenham wears a black coat, cream waistcoat and white stock. A red curtain is draped behind him and in the distance is a landscape.

30 by 25 ins (76 by 64 cms)

Presented by C.F. Bell, 1937

Sydenham was the eldest son of Major-General William Sydenham, Commandant of the Company’s Madras Artillery. He served in the Madras Engineers 1796-1808, returning to England on leave in 1801 with his mother after the death of his father. He was a protégé of Sir Arthur Wellesley and went back to England with him in 1808. He became involved in politics and was sent on a mission to Wellesley in Spain in 1809. He held the post of Commissioner of Excise, England and Wales 1809-15. He led a gay social life and had an affair with Harriette Wilson’s sister Amy. It is said that when visited in Venice by his uncle General Robert Bell in 1820, he wore a mask to hide his ravaged features. ‘Gentleman’s magazine’ (April 1828, XCVIII, 371) refers to his death from ‘the mingled pressure of active business and of the seductive and undermining habits which were almost unavoidable for a member of society so much liked and sought after in the choicest circles of the convivial world’.

Literature: G.F. Sydenham (ed. A.T. Cameron), ‘History of the Sydenham family’ (East Molesey, 1923).