6414

Lieutenant John Helias Finnie McEwen 1915

Standing half-length to the left, wearing the uniform of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, his right hand holding his Sam Browne belt, his left resting on his hip, a stormy sky beyond

Oil on board, 85.1 x 68 cm (33 ½ x 26 ¾ in.)

Inscribed lower left: P A de László / 25 April / 1915   

Laib L7676 (396) / C17 (29)  Lieutenant McEwen

NPG 1915-16 Album, p. 72: J. McEwen 1915+ (died) [sic]

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 104: J.H.F. McEwen / 25 April 1915 / [in the artist’s hand: Hammondswood / Frensham]

Private Collection

The present portrait was commissioned by the sitter’s father Robert Finnie McEwen. It hung with the other de László family portraits in the dining-room at Marchmont, Berwickshire. De László painted the sitter's younger brother James in May of the same year [6407], a year before his death in action. He also made a portrait drawing of his sister Katharine in 1916 [10052], painted his father in 1925 [6396], his mother Mary in 1917 [6398] and his wife Bridget Mary in 1930 [6411].

John ‘Jock’ Helias Finnie McEwen was born on 21 June 1894, the eldest son of Robert Finnie McEwen and Mary Frances Dundas of Marchmont, Berwickshire and Bardrochat, Ayrshire. He was educated at Eton and then at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained an M.A.. During the First World War, he served as a Captain in the 5th Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and the Royal Flying Corps. He was shot down in action and was subsequently a prisoner of war from 1916 until 1918. In 1920, he became 3rd Secretary in H.M. Diplomatic Service and 2nd  Secretary in 1925, serving in Athens and Rome.

On 15 June 1923, at Brompton Oratory, London, he married Bridget Mary Lindley in 1923, the daughter of the late Right Honourable Sir Francis Lindley, P.C., G.C.M.G. They had six children, James Napier Finnie (born 1924), Robin Lindley (born 1926), Christian Mary (born 1929), Roderick (born 1932), Alexander Dundas (born 1935), David Fraser (born 1938) and John Sebastian (born 1948).

After his years in the Foreign Office, the sitter became the Conservative M.P. for Berwick and Haddington from 1931-45, Assistant Government Whip from 1938-39. He was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland from 1939 until 1940. In 1940, he was received into the Catholic Church on the feast of St. Joan of Arc, at the time of the fall of his beloved France to the invading Germans. He made his act of devotion certain that St. Joan, through her intercession, would once again liberate France from its enemies, which she did. From 1942 until 1944, he was Lord Commander of the Treasury, and Chairman of the Conservative Members' Committee in the House of Commons from 1944 until 1945. He was on the boards of many Scottish Committees and Councils. The sitter also had a passion for poetry and literature, and had several books published, notably translations of Fénelon, Mauriac and Louise de Vilmorin, but also The Fifth Camerons (the official battalion history), J.R.D. McEwen: A Memoir, and two volumes of his poems. He lived at Marchmont House, Berwickshire and was created 1st Baronet in 1953. Sir John died on 19 April 1962.

LITERATURE:

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 298

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 148

We are grateful to John McEwen for his help in compiling this entry

CC 2008