Foster 845

William Abington (c.1770-1839), 1837

Three-quarters length portrait of an elderly man seated in a chair against a background of dark red draperies. He wears a high-collared shirt, black cravat, brown coat and black cloak.

Inscribed on the back of the sitter’s chair: ‘H Barraud, 1837’.

30 by 25 ins (76 by 63.5 cms)

Purchased 1984. The painting had descended from John Barlow Ruddock, Professor of Mathematics and Latin at the East India Company’s military seminary at Addiscombe from 1827 to 1841.

Literature: C. Miles, 'Some new acquisitions relating to the Addiscombe Military Seminary'‘, India Office Library and Records - Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books Newletter,’ No.35, June 1985, pp 2-3, illustrated.

William Abington was an East India Company Home Civil Servant whose career was bound up in the founding of the Company’s military seminary at Addiscombe and its early administration. He joined the Company in 1787 as a clerk in the Pay Office. As a senior East India House clerk he drew up a plan for a military institution for cadets intended for the Company’s artillery or engineer corps in India and presented it to the Committee of Correspondence, the body which up to 1809 considered applications from prospective cadets, on 21st December, 1808. The Court of Directors approved the plan for the foundation for a seminary and in 1809 Addiscombe Place, near Croydon was purchased for this purpose. Abington was appointed Clerk to the newly established Military Seminary Committee in 1809, a post he occupied up to his retirement in 1834. On leaving the Company’s service his ‘zeal, diligence and integrity’ was acknowledged by the Secretary of the Military Department. He received a sum of £500 as an extraordinary mark of approbation and an annual pension of £800.