5083

Robert Fleming 1924

Half-length in three-quarter profile to the right, wearing a dark coat with a wide fur collar over a dark suit

Oil on canvas, 89.9 x 59.7 cm (35 ⅜ x 23 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1924   

Laib L11551(799) / C9(17)  General Fleming [sic]

NPG 1925-27 Album, p. 15

Sitters’ Book II, f. 39: Robert Fleming March 21st 1924

Private Collection

During the First World War, in 1915, de László painted Robert Fleming's sons Philip [5110] and Valentine [5085].

Robert Fleming was born 24 March 1845 at Lochee, near Dundee, the son of John Fleming (1806-1873), of Glen Shee, Perthshire and his wife Ann McIntosh (1808-1860. His father worked as a bookkeeper in a linen factory and the family lived modestly. At the age of thirteen Robert started work as an office boy to a Dundee merchant at an annual salary of £5. By the age of twenty-eight, in 1873, he had founded the investment bank, Robert Fleming & Co., which bore his name for more than a century until it was taken over by Chase Manhattan Bank in 2000.

As one of the shrewdest investors of his generation, Fleming established his reputation through his expertise on American railroads. In 1888 he founded The Investment Trust Corporation in London, and The British Investment Trust in Edinburgh the following year. He was instrumental in establishing the Northern American Trust Company in Dundee in 1896 and reorganized the Metropolitan Trust Company in London in 1899. He was a contemporary of J. Pierpont Morgan [3909], who de László painted in 1916, and a close business associate of Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.

On 14 February 1881 he married Sarah Kate Hindmarsh (1857-1937), daughter of Marshall Kirkland Hindmarsh and his wife Mary Kirby Baylis. They had four children: Valentine (born 1882), Philip (born 1889), Dorothy (born 1883) and Kathleen (born 1885) and lived at Tighnavon,West Newport, near Dundee.^[1] 

Fleming was a considerable philanthropist and used his wealth to support many causes, particularly in his birthplace Dundee. In 1929 he donated £155,000 to University College in the city to finance building houses for Dundee’s working class.^[2] 

Robert Fleming died 31 July 1933 in Fife.

KF 2021