Sir,—On This Day (HI 34.2, March/April 2026, p. 9) was illustrated with a thumbnail portrait image of Thomas Drummond, the under-secretary for Ireland. It is a detail of an engraving by Edward Burton after a painted portrait by W.H. Pickersgill that is now in the National Galleries of Scotland. How it got there is a little-known story.
In 1930 two paintings were bequeathed to the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) by Drummond’s daughter, Emily—the portrait of her father by Pickersgill and a portrait of Edmund Burke by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The board of the NGI accepted the bequest along with the condition set by Miss Drummond:
‘I declare that should the Irish Free State cease to function as a part of the British Empire and an independent republic be established in that country then … I give and bequeath the said two portraits to the Board of Trustees and their successors for ever for behoof of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.’
This condition was strongly objected to by some (e.g. The Nation, 2 August 1930). Ireland left the Commonwealth in 1949, but it took until 1969 for the paintings to be removed to Edinburgh.—Yours etc.,
PHILIP McEVANSONEYA