John McLure Hamilton

Later he travelled to Europe and continued his education at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and at the Royal Academy in Belgium.

While maintaining a permanent address in Philadelphia, he lived in England for fifty-eight years where he was official portrait painter to William Ewart Gladstone, prime minister of the United Kingdom.

[3] In addition to Gladstone, Hamilton painted portraits of many English notables including Cardinal Manning, George Meredith and Richard Vaux.

'In its review of the book, the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography wrote: For Philadelphians who have known J. McLure Hamilton as a fellow townsman — even if a somewhat cosmopolitan one who dissembles his love for his native city by very rarely remaining in it for any length of time, much to the regret of his numerous friends — the dictum of Mary Drew, one of the Gladstone family, that 'it is doubtful if there is one individuality more unusual or more interesting than that of the writer himself' will be accepted as final and quite a summing up of his gossipy new book 'Men I Have Painted,' with 48 portraits.

But, a book which deals with Bismarck, Asquith, Balfour, Manning, Tyndall, Spencer, General Booth, G. F. Watts and George Meredith, selecting a few of the more world-famous names cannot be but fascinating especially in these days of the craze for personality in biography.