Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pelham, Peter

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1157873Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 44 — Pelham, Peter1895Freeman Marius O'Donoghue

PELHAM, PETER (d. 1751), mezzotint-engraver, son of Peter Pelham of Chichester, was born, according to Redgrave, about 1684, but more probably some ten years later. His father died at Chichester in 1756, aged over eighty, and a sister Helen was living there in 1762. The earliest date on his plates is 1720, and between that year and 1726 he produced a number of excellent portraits, which were published in London, some of them by himself; these include Queen Anne, Lord Carteret, Lord Wilmington, George I, and the Duke of Newcastle, after Kneller; Oliver Cromwell, after Walker; the Earl of Derby, after Winstanley; Lord Molesworth, and Dr. Edmund Gibson, bishop of London, after Murray; James Gibb, the architect, after Huyssing or Hysing; and Mrs. Centlivre, after Firmin. In 1726 Pelham emigrated to America with his wife Martha and two sons, Peter and Charles, and settled at Boston, where he established a school, in which were taught writing, reading, dancing, painting, and needlework, and practised both as painter and engraver until the end of his life; he was the earliest artist resident in America, and his portrait of the Rev. Cotton Mather, published in 1727, is believed to have been the first mezzotint plate ever executed there. Pelham's American prints, of which thirteen are catalogued by Chaloner Smith, comprise portraits of the Rev. Charles Brockwell; Thomas Hollis, after Highmore; Benjamin Colman, Joseph Sewall, and Governor W. Shirley, all after Smibert. In 1748 Pelham married, at Boston, as his second wife, Mary Copley, widow of Richard Copley and daughter of John Singleton of Quinville Abbey, co. Clare, and thus became the stepfather and first instructor of John Singleton Copley [q. v.], the painter. Mrs. Copley appears to have kept a tobacco store, which was added to the already varied attractions of the Pelham establishment. He died in December 1751, and was buried on the 14th of that month at Trinity Church, Boston; his widow survived him until 1789. Of his sons by his first wife, Peter Pelham settled in 1749 in Virginia, William Pelham died at Boston in 1761, and Charles Pelham became a schoolmaster at Medford in Massachusetts, purchased land at Newton in the same state, married Mary Tyler, niece of Sir William Pepperell, and left a daughter, married to Thomas Curtis, and mother of Charles Pelham Curtis.

By his second marriage he had a son, Henry Pelham (1749–1806), who painted historical subjects and miniatures, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1777 and 1778, when he was residing in London with his half-brother, Copley; later he went to Ireland, intending to practise as an engineer, became agent of Lord Lansdowne's estates in Kerry, and was accidentally drowned in the Kenmare river in 1806. He was married to the daughter of William Butler of Castlecrine, co. Clare, but left no surviving issue. A good mezzotint plate by W. Ward of ‘The Finding of Moses,’ from a picture by Henry Pelham, was published in 1787. The first picture sent by Copley to England, ‘ A Boy with a Squirrel,’ was a portrait of Henry Pelham.

[Massachusetts Historical Society's Proceedings, May 1866; Perkins's Life of J. S. Copley; J. Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]

F. M. O'D.