Thomas Hudson (1701-1779)

Walter Edwards Freeman, three-quarter length, standing in a landscape (probably the grounds of Batsford Park) wearing a dark green velvet jacket with gold buttons and a white cravat, an ivory silk waistcoat with his hat tucked under his arm, his hair worn en queue.  Oil on canvas.

Walter Edwards Freeman (born circa 1725) was the son of Mary (nee Freeman) and Walter Edwards Senior whose family came from Bristol. Mary's father was Richard Freeman (Senior), a landowner with extensive properties in several counties who was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1702. After the death of his uncle, Richard Freeman (the Younger) in 1745, he inherited the estate of Batsford Park, Gloucestershire, and he and his family took the surname Freeman. Sadly Walter died two years later and his brother Thomas then inherited the Batsford Estate. When Thomas died without a direct heir in 1808, the estate passed on to his wife's nephew John Mitford and so on through the Mitford family. In 1916 it was inherited by David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale and father of the famous Mitford sisters. His eldest daughter, Nancy Mitford, based part of her novels The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate on their time living at Batsford.

From 1740 to about 1760 Thomas Hudson was one of the most successful portrait painters in England. Having come to London in the mid-1720's, shortly after the death of Sir Godfrey Kneller in 1723, Hudson gradually rose to a position of prominence, which he held until the 1750's. Hudson painted only portraits, working first under the influence of his teacher Jonathan Richardson, and then turning in the 1740's to the baroque portrait compositions of Sir Anthony Van Dyck and Sir Peter Lely. From this time, with the assistance of drapery painters such as Joseph Van Aken, Hudson produced large numbers of portraits of ladies, gentlemen, judges and clergymen. He married his teacher's daughter Mary Richardson in 1725 and on Richardson's retirement in 1740, he inherited a number of Richardson's clients. Hudson also followed in his father-in-law's footsteps in collecting drawings and paintings by Old Masters as well as those by his contemporaries.