agreed, not without a certain generosity; for on releasing his pupil he declared that he did so ‘in order not to stand in the way of one who, he was sure, would do wonders.’
On his emancipation Romney worked for a short time at Lancaster, but soon returned to Kendal, and started in practice on his own account, taking his younger brother Peter, a lad of sixteen, whose artistic bent seemed no less pronounced than his own, as his pupil and assistant. His first recorded work as an independent painter was a sign for the post-office in Kendal—a hand holding a letter. He soon attracted the attention of some of the local magnates, and began to paint portraits at modest prices. The Stricklands of Sizergh were among his earliest patrons. He painted the brothers Walter and Charles Strickland and their wives, and Walter Strickland allowed him free access to his collection of pictures, many of which he copied. Among his sitters at this period were also Jacob Morland of Capplethwaite, Colonel Wilson of Abbot Hall, and the Rev. Daniel and Mrs. Wilson. His prices were six guineas for a whole-length, and two for a three-quarter figure. But even this latter modest sum he had great difficulty in extracting from one ‘patron,’ Dr. Bateman, the headmaster of Sedbergh School.
In the intervals of portrait-painting Romney tried a curious experiment. While in York he had collected a series of prints after the Dutch masters. From these he made oil copies and pasticci, a selection from which, with two or three original subjects, he exhibited in the town-hall at Kendal, and then raffled for 10s. 6d. a ticket. The catalogue of the lottery enumerates twenty pieces. Among them were two scenes from ‘King Lear’ and one from ‘Tristram Shandy.’ The latter represented the arrival of Dr. Slop, a grotesque figure, perhaps reproduced by Romney from the supposed original of the character, the eccentric Dr. Burton of York.
The proceeds of the lottery, with other small savings of the painter and his wife, made up a sum of 100l. Romney, conscious of powers that demanded a better opportunity than the provinces afforded, became anxious to try his fortune in London. He had now two children, a son (afterwards the Rev. John Romney, his father's biographer) and a daughter two years old, who died at the age of three. He hesitated to embark them all in his doubtful enterprise, and his wife seems to have fully acquiesced in his decision that, until his prospects were more settled, she and the children should remain in the north. There is no reason to suppose that the lifelong separation which followed was premeditated on either side; and the strictures of Hayley and others on Romney for his ‘desertion’ of his family are largely discounted by the facts that neither wife nor son ever showed the least resentment or sense of injury, and that John Romney's ‘Life’ is, in the main, a spirited justification of his father's conduct. John Romney was devoted to his mother, and would hardly have condoned anything like ill-treatment of her. As he grew to manhood he seems to have divided his time between his parents. Mrs. Romney eventually made her home with her father-in-law at Dalton, and later at Kendal.
Romney arrived in London in 1762, having divided his little savings with his wife. His only friends in the capital were his two compatriots, Braithwaite of the Post Office, and Greene, the schoolfellow already mentioned. With Braithwaite's help he found a lodging in Dove Court, near the Mansion House, removing in the following year to the house of one Hautree, in Bearbinder's Lane. Here he set to work on the picture which was his first introduction to the world of art, ‘The Death of General Wolfe.’ With this he is said to have competed for the premium of the Society of Arts in 1763. The result is not quite clear. According to his own and his friends' account, he was in the first instance awarded the second prize of fifty guineas; but the judges afterwards revised their verdict, adjudging the prize of fifty guineas to John Hamilton Mortimer [q. v.] for his ‘Edward the Confessor seizing the Treasures of his Mother,’ and bestowing on Romney a consolation prize of twenty-five guineas. Reynolds, according to his friends' version of the episode, was a prime mover in the reversal of the first award, and to him Romney, rightly or wrongly, ascribed his disappointment. Thus, it is asserted, were sown the seeds of the scarcely veiled aversion that persisted between these two famous men through the rest of their lives. That the details of the story are questionable is shown by the circumstance that, in the official list of premiums given by the Society of Arts in 1763, no mention whatever was made of Romney among the prize-winners, and that Mortimer is credited with gaining the first prize of one hundred guineas with a picture of ‘St. Paul converting the Britons.’ There is, however, no doubt that immediately after the competition Romney's picture was bought by Rowland Stephenson the banker, and presented to Governor Henry Verelst [q. v.], by whom it was hung in the council-chamber at Calcutta.
