page_title: Francis Noel Clarke Mundy
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Francis Noel Clarke Mundy / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: Bust of Francis Noel Clarke Mundy (1739-1815). photo by Richard Keene of Derby Undated, but possibly taken in the early to mid-1860s Format: Albumen print
context_page_description: Francis Noel Clarke Mundy was an English poet. His most noted work was written to defend Needwood Forest which was enclosed at the beginning of the 19th century. He was the father of Francis Mundy.
context_section_description: Francis Noel Clarke Mundy was born 15 August 1739 at Osbaston Hall, Osbaston, Leicestershire, which at that time belonged to the Mundys a family which had been based in Markeaton since John Mundy bought lands in Derbyshire. He received his education at Repton School and at Winchester and then proceeded to New College, Oxford in 1757,receiving his MA in 1761.
  In 1762–3, Joseph Wright exhibited a set of six portraits that were commissioned by Mundy. Each of the portraits were in the distinctive dress of the Markearton Hunt consisting of yellow breeches and a blue coat over a scarlet waistcoat. These paintings hung at the ancestral home of Markeaton Hall. The subjects of these commissions included old school friends like Harry Peckham K.C. and relatives like his brother-in-law, Francis Burdett.
  Mundy married first Elizabeth Ayrton who died in Falmouth aged 22 on 1 October 1768. He then married Elizabeth eldest daughter of Sir Robert Burdett bart in 1770 and had two sons: Francis and Charles Godfrey His second wife died in 1807 aged 64. As a poet he is considered part of the Lichfield circle.
  Mundy died in 1815 and the magistrates of Derbyshire commissioned a bust by Francis Chantrey which was placed in the county hall in memory of his long and eminent services as justice of the peace and chairman of the quarter sessions. The bust bears the following inscription:
  "This Effigy is consecrated by his Countrymen to the Memory of Francis Noel Clarke Mundy who having modestly declined their unanimous Offer to elect him their Representative in Parliament continued to preside on the Bench of Justices in this Hall during a period of nearly 50 years with a clearness of judgment and an integrity of decision well worthy of being gratefully and honourably recorded This excellent Man admired for the elegance of his literary Productions beloved for the gentleness of his Manners revered for his public and private Virtues lived happily at his paternal seat at Markeaton to the age of 76 years May his Example excite Emulation "
  In addition there is an engraving of him with his grandson, William Mundy, by Charles Turner (after R. R. Reinagle). The picture also features in the foreground the manuscript of Mundy's ‘'The Fall of Needwood Forest’'. South Derbyshire magistrates court also own an oil painting of him "after" Thomas Lawrence.
caption: Mundy's bust by Francis Legatt Chantrey.
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