Benjamin Ferrers

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title: "Benjamin Ferrers" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1732-deaths", "english-portrait-painters", "18th-century-english-painters", "english-male-painters", "artists-from-westminster", "deaf-artists", "english-deaf-people", "year-of-birth-uncertain", "18th-century-english-male-artists", "british-artists-with-disabilities"] description: "English portrait painter" topic_path: "people/1730s" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Ferrers" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary English portrait painter ::

Benjamin Ferrers (–1732) was an English portrait painter.

Life

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/The_Court_of_Chancery_during_the_reign_of_George_I_by_Benjamin_Ferrers.jpg" caption="''The Court of Chancery during the reign of George I'' by Benjamin Ferrers (National Portrait Gallery, London)."] ::

Christened in late 1667 in Cookham, Berkshire, Ferrers was deaf from his birth and appears to have lived in Westminster. An account record of a court case in 1720 records:{{blockquote| A Motion that Mr. Benjamin Ferrers, A Deaf and Dumb Person, might be allowed to acknowledge a Fine in open Court, upon an Examinination to be taken by Signs upon the Fingers, upon the Report on Oath of one Mr. Ralph Russell, who swore he had been used to converse with him in that Manner for seventeen Years and upwards, and that he understood his Meaning perfectly by these Signs...}} He was related to William Beveridge, bishop of St. Asaph. Beveridge refused to sit for a portrait during his lifetime, but following his death at Westminster on 5 March 1706–7, Ferrers painted one from his corpse. The picture, which is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, was engraved by William Sherwin (both in mezzotint and line), by Michael van der Gucht as a frontispiece to Beveridge's works, and by Trotter.

Ferrers also painted a picture of the Court of Chancery under Lord Chancellor Macclesfield, which included portraits of Macclesfield, Sir Philip Yorke and Sir Thomas Pengelly. This picture was owned by Dr. Lort of Cambridge, who gave it to the Earl of Hardwicke, and at the 5th Earl of Hardwicke's 1888 sale of pictures at Wimpole Hall it was bought by the National Portrait Gallery. His painting Three Ladies of the Leman Family and their Dogs on a Terrace (1728) is in the collection of the Tate Gallery

Ferrers painted a portrait of Thomas Cockman, Master of University College, Oxford, his brother John Cockman, and five Fellows of the college. The painting remained in the Cockham family until 2008, when it was auctioned at Sotheby's and acquired by University College.

Ferrers died in 1732; a Latin panegyric on him was written by his friend, Vincent Bourne, of Westminster School.

References

Sources

References

1. "England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NP2X-9G9 : 11 February 2018, Benjamin Ferrers, 20 Oct 1667); citing, index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City; FHL microfilm 88,236.
2. Cooke, George. (1742). "Reports and Cases of Practice in the Court of Common Pleas: In the Reigns of Queen Anne, King George I. and King George II.". H. Lintot.
3. Norris, John. (1839). "A catalogue of the pictures, models, busts, &c. in the Bodleian gallery, Oxford".
4. "Portrait of Thomas and John Cockman and some Fellows of University College". [[University College, Oxford]].
5. (Summer 2008). "A contentious succession". [[University College, Oxford]].
6. ''Dictionary of National Biography''

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