Portrait of George Hibbert

George Hibbert's father and grandfather were merchants in Manchester while an uncle was a leading planter and merchant in Jamaica. In 1780, with money granted upon his coming-of-age, he moved to London and joined Hibbert, Purrier & Horton, a firm led by two of his elder brothers which was ultimately terminated in 1815. He and his brothers formed a further commercial partnership in the 1790s and George Hibbert remained deeply involved with both. Between 1798 and 1803 he was an Alderman of the City of London and in 1799 he was a founding Director of the West India Dock Company which built the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs. These docks provided secure storage for goods arriving from the West Indies. He was a leading proponent of the docks’ construction, was several times elected Chairman of the Court of Directors and a member of several of the Company’s sub-committees.

As a West India merchant he was opposed to the abolition of the slave trade on which his wealth and power was based. He published a pamphlet in 1807 entitled ‘The Substance of Three Speeches on the Abolition of the Slave Trade’. By 1810, however, he had become resigned to its end and instead campaigned for its more effective termination. An MP between 1806 – 1812, he was the Government’s 'main West Indies supporter'. Upon leaving Parliament he acted as the Agent for Jamaica until 1830 and headed the West India Committee. Hibbert married in 1784 and had five sons, some of whom continued the family connection with the West India Docks Company.

The artist, Sir Lawrence Thomas (1769-1830) was born in Bristol, and was self-taught before coming to London in 1787, when he attended the Royal Academy Schools for 3 months. He first exhibited there that same year. In 1792 he succeeded Reynolds as Painter in Ordinary. His fame became European after the large-scale project of the Waterloo Chamber portraits at Windsor.