The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-09 00:00:00

DEATH OF XR, SKEEPSHANKS.

The accomplished owner of the famous collection
of pictures, known as the Sheepshanks Gallery,
which he presented to the nation in his lifetime,
died at his residence, Rutland-gate, on Monday last.
Mr. Sheepshanks, born in 1787, was the son of a
wealthy cloth manufacturer at Leeds, and succeeded
his father in the business. His brother, the Rev.
Richard Sheepshanks, F.R.S., F.R.A.S., formerly
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was the dis-
tinguished astronomer.
_ _

Mr, Richard Sheepshanks took an active part in
the restoration of the standard scale of linear mea-
sure; was one of the Boundary Commissioners under
the Reform Act ; 111 1828-9, founded the Cambridge
Observatory, arid in the latter year joined Mr. G.B.
Airy (Astronomer Royal) in the pendulum opera-
tions in Cornwall ; in 1832 was consulted by the
Admiralty about Groombridge's circumpolar cata-
logue ; in 1838 settled the chronometrical determi-
nation of the longitude of Antwerp and Brussels;
and had a high reputation for his Construction of
chronometers and astronomical instruments. He
died in 1855.

Mr. John Sheepshanks has for a long time been
known as a collector of choice pictures, but has led
a quiet and unobtrusive life, liberal to artists and
happy in their society—though unknown to the
general world up to the act of patriotic munificence
which entitled him to a nation's gratitude.
Early in December, 1856, London was surprised
and delighted to hear that Mr. Sheepshanks had
presented to the nation the whole of his splendid
collection of drawings and
paintings, for the pur-
poses of public instruction in art. Mr. Sheepshanks
disapproved of irresponsible management by boards
like the trustees of the British Museum and Na-
tional Gallery, and made it a condition that the
care of his collection should
responsibility of taking
rest with an individual minister—the Vice-President
of the Committee of Council on Education. The
generous donor considered that a crowded thorough-
fare was not suitable for the genial study of works
of art, and he stipulated that his collection should
be removed to South Kensington, giving also a
liberal permission to provincial towns to have the
pictures on loan, if the authorities provided suitable
places to exhibit them in. Lord Palmerston ac-
cepted the splendid gift with gratitude on behalf
of the Government, and the collection was removed
from Rutland-gate to South Kensington early
in 1857. The collection is worth about
£60,000. It is especially rich in the best works
of Mulready, Leslie, and Landseer, and con-
tains fine examples of the principal modern British
oil-painters. There fire 233 oil paintings, 103
sketches and drawings by Tamer, Stanfield,
Chalon, &c.
Among the "conditions precedent" of his gift
Was one which Mr. Sheepshanks ultimately did not
insist upon—the opening of his collection on Sun-
days.
Mr. Sheepshanks lived unnoticed and unrewarded
for his munificence, and died at his London resi-
dence on the sth inst., at the age of 76. Had he
been a Frenchman he would have been a Member
of the Academy, and would have worn the ribbon
have been
of the Legion of Honour. Whatever may
make
the remissness of the British Government to
any recognition of the liberality of men like John
Sheepshanks and Robert Vernon, it is to the credit
of these gentlemen that they never claimed any
honour or made any stipulations in their own in-
t tea-est, bat freely, and Vithout bargaining for