Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ferrers, Benjamin
FERRERS, BENJAMIN (d. 1732), portrait-painter, was deaf and dumb from his birth, and appears to have resided in Westminster. He painted a portrait of William Beveridge, bishop of St. Asaph, who was his kinsman, taken from the dead body of the bishop, who died at Westminster 5 March 1706–7; the portrait is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and was engraved by W. Sherwin, both in mezzotint and line, by Michael van der Gucht, as a frontispiece to his works, and by Trotter. Ferrers also painted a picture of the court of chancery under Lord-chancellor Macclesfield, with numerous portraits. This picture was in the possession of Dr. Lort of Cambridge, who gave it to the Earl of Hardwicke, and at the sale of the Wimpole pictures in 1888 it was purchased by the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery. Ferrers died in 1732, and a Latin panegyric on him was written by his friend, Vincent Bourne [q. v.], of Westminster School.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting; Vincent Bourne's Poematia; Norris's Catalogue of the Pictures in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]