12017

Brigadier-General Francis Lloyd 1906

Three-quarter length slightly to the left, facing the viewer, wearing the red tunic of the Grenadier Guards, and holding a white plumed hat in his right hand.

Oil on canvas, 110 x 75cm (43 ¼ x 29 ½ in.)

Inscribed top left: Francis Lloyd, Aston 1906.

Sitters’ Book I, f. 72: Francis Lloyd 25 Feb 1906. [in the artist’s hand: Farnborough Park / 906 / 20 July]

Private Collection

Francis Lloyd met de László at his studio in Vienna in February 1906 and arranged to have his and his wife’s portraits painted later that year in England. The artist was then engaged in painting another British sitter, The Duke of Cambridge [2823], who was serving as Military Attaché in Vienna and signed the Sitters’ Book three days after Lloyd.

In July de László travelled to the sitter’s home Farnborough Park, near Aldershot, where he also made a portrait drawing of him [12941] and a portrait of his wife Mary [11994]. Lucy de László noted in her diary that he was away for 5-6 weeks in total and also painted Mrs Stephenson Clarke [4060] while in England.^[1] The present picture was slightly damaged when it was moved to the Lloyd’s ancestral home, Aston Hall, Oswestry in September 1906. He wrote to the artist indicating that it was not too serious but hoped it could be rectified one day in the future.^[2] The sitter paid the artist £800 for both portraits.^[3]

Lloyd’s biographer, Richard Morris, points out that many of the decorations in the portrait were achieved after 1906. It is possible that de László added these when he painted another portrait of Lloyd in 1915 [11991] or that they are the work of an unknown artist.

Francis Lloyd was born on 12 August 1853 at Aston Hall, the eldest son of Colonel Richard Lloyd and his wife Lady Frances Hay, daughter of the 11th Earl of Kinnoull. In 1881 he married Mary, daughter of George Ponton Gunnis, of Leckie, in Stirlingshire. There were no children of the marriage.

Lloyd joined the army in 1874. His first regiment was the 33rd Duke of Wellington’s, but he soon transferred to his father’s regiment, the Grenadier Guards. In 1885 he served as a signalling officer in the Guards Brigade at Suakin in the Sudan, and he was awarded the DSO in 1898 after the recapture of Khartoum.

Lloyd spent over two years in South Africa during the Boer War and was severely wounded at the battle of Biddulphsberg. By 1906 he had command of a Guards Brigade at Aldershot, and in 1909 was promoted to Major-General when he took command of the Welsh Territorials Division. He was made a Knight Commander of the Bath in 1911.

In 1913 he was given command of the London District, the most senior position for Guardsmen, which he held throughout the First World War. His responsibilities were extended to include hospitals and the railway termini, which earned him the sobriquet ‘The Man Who Runs London.’ Lloyd was promoted to Lieutenant General in January 1917 and, on his retirement from the army in 1918, was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order by King George V.

Lloyd died February 1926 at Rolls Park, Chigwell, Essex.

EXHIBITED:

•The Fine Art Society, London, Portrait Paintings and Drawings by Philip A. Laszlo, May and June 1907, no. 10

•The Dowdeswell Galleries, London, An Exhibition of Portraits by Philip A Laszlo, June and July 1908, no. 13

•Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, On Behalf of the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution. Exhibition of Portraits by Philip A Laszlo, MVO, June-July, 1913, no. 29  

LITERATURE:

•Letter from de László to Brigadier-General Francis Lloyd, 25 August 1906. (National Library of Wales, Aston Hall Deeds, no. 4878)

•Burrows, FSA, John William, The Essex Yeomanry, Southend-on-Sea: John Burrows & Sons, Ltd, 1925, pp. 36, 41

•Morris, Richard, The Man Who Ran London During the Great War: The Diaries and Letters of Lieutenant General Sir Francis Lloyd GCVO, KCB, DSO, 1853-1926, Pen & Sword Military, Barnsley, 2009, p. 54, 69

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 90, ill.

•László, Lucy de, 1902-1911 diary, 14 September 1906 entry, p. 93

•DLA074-0017, letter from Lloyd to de László, 16 September 1906

•DLA074-0020, letter from Lloyd to de László, 1 October 1906

•DLA074-0013, letter from Lloyd to de László, 19 August 1906

•DLA074-0024, letter from Mrs Lloyd to de László, 7 June 1906

•DLA074-0025, letter from Mrs Lloyd to de László, 24 June 1906

•DLA140-0186, “Some Art Notes. Portraits by Philip C. László [sic]. The Work of Philip A. László, The Well-Known Hungarian Painter”, Black and White, 8 June 1907, p. 783, ill.

The de László Catalogue Raisonné would like to acknowledge the help of Richard Morris with the biographical information for this entry

KF 2017