L-R: Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694-1753), his daughters Charlotte (1731-1754) and Dorothy (1724-1742), his wife Dorothy Boyle, Countess of Burlington (1699-1758) and James Cumberlidge (1727/28-1788) 

This article focuses on Jean-Baptiste Van Loo’s painting Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, and His Wife Dorothy Boyle, Countess of Burlington with Three Children (above) made in 1739.

Research undertaken as part of our exhibition 'Picturing Childhood' has recovered the identity of James Cumberlidge and his biography. Had he not been included in the portrait now at Chatsworth, his story may have remained in obscurity, as is the case for many Black Britons of the Georgian period.

In this regard, Cumberlidge is unusual: his employment in the Burlington household and the survival of the archive at Chatsworth has meant that his story can be told. 

Who was James Cumberlidge?

As a child, James Cumberlidge (about 1727/28-1788) was employed as part of the household staff of Dorothy Boyle (née Savile), Countess of Burlington (1699-1758). During this time, he lived at Burlington House in London and Chiswick on the River Thames – the most advanced artistic and fashionable household in London.

After the Countess’s death in 1758, Cumberlidge became a member of the Royal Household as a trumpeter in ordinary to George II and George III (1). This role almost certainly came about because of the 4th Duke of Devonshire’s position as Lord Chamberlain from 1757 to 1762, in whose gift the appointment of royal musicians was held. Having married the Burlingtons’ daughter Charlotte Boyle (1731-1754), William Cavendish, the future 4th Duke of Devonshire (1720-1764) was the Burlingtons’ heir and would have known Cumberlidge for many years prior to his appointment as Lord Chamberlain. 

The portrait by Jean Baptiste van Loo

The painting shows the Burlingtons engaged in creative activities. Lady Burlington was an artist, and the premise of this composition is that James Cumberlidge is bringing her brushes and paints before she begins to make a portrait on the canvas placed on the easel behind him.

Around this time, she made the double portrait of her daughters, now at Hardwick Hall. At the time this painting was made, the girls Charlotte and Dorothy Boyle were about seven and fourteen respectively and to judge from his appearance, James Cumberlidge was about eleven or twelve. However, whereas the two Boyle daughters gesture to their pursuit of learning in the arts - music and literature - Cumberlidge is at work. 

The palette provided by Cumberlidge to the Countess is loaded with lead white, yellow ochre, and red vermillion, the three colours required for a portraitist of this period to paint the flesh of White sitters. This tells us that the Countess is likely about to make a portrait, perhaps one of her daughters, but definitely not that of James Cumberlidge. This is one of several small inferences showing that while Cumberlidge was included in this portrait, he was not by any means considered equal or equivalent to the couple’s children. 

Lady Dorothy Boyle (1724–1742), Countess of Euston, and Her Sister Lady Charlotte Boyle (1731–1754), Later Marchioness of Hartington, Dorothy Boyle (née Savile) 1699-1758, oil on canvas, Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire  ©National Trust Images 

Traditions in art of the 1700s

Van Loo’s painting fits within a tradition in western art in which Black attendants, often children, wait upon White sitters. This fashion for wealthy White women to employ male Black children in their households, and often to have their portraits made with them, reached its peak in the 1730s and was satirised by William Hogarth in his work Taste in High Life. 

J Jarvis after William Hogarth, Taste in High Life, 1746, etching, British Museum 1826, 0313.23
© The Trustees of the British Museum

As Britain steadily increased its involvement in transatlantic slavery in the early 1700s, so the presence of Black attendants, often demonstrably enslaved, increased in portraits of the men and women who brought them into their homes to serve as attendants.

These children, often boys as young as five, were brought either from Africa or from Britain’s colonies as the chattel property of sea captains and others involved in The Triangular Trade. 

The Triangular Trade led to the ensnarement of millions of people from the West Coast of Africa, exchanged for materials and goods that were often the products of enslaved labour. This enslaved workforce was transported to Britain’s colonies in the Americas in what was known as The Middle Passage.

Many did not survive the journey. Subjected to inhumane conditions, the enslaved worked without pay to produce cash crops such as sugar and cotton that enriched Britain and underwrote the expansion of the empire.

Unless manumitted (set free), enslavement was a permanent status both for those newly enslaved and their children born in the slaving colonies or during the Middle Passage. As will be seen, for those few who found themselves in the British Isles, arrival on British soil did not confer instant freedom. 

In portraiture of this period, these young men and children are often shown toward the margins of the composition, diminutive in scale and deferential in demeanour. In some cases, artists used models — stock figures who were reused in multiple compositions for different patrons; in other cases, the artist took the likeness of the child.

This is what Van Loo did in this painting of James Cumberlidge. Cumberlidge’s likeness is not generalised, nor found in any other portrait of the period. His position towards the edge of the painting is typical of this established mode of representation, but unusual as far as he actively interacts with the Countess. Although on the margins, he leans in and is engaged in the scene, looking not towards the Countess, but towards her daughter Dorothy, who in turn looks back at the viewer. 

Black servants in Briton and the Burlington Household

As the research of Richard Hewlings (2) has shown, there was a significant Black presence in the Burlington household from at least the 1720s. This was not unusual – other aristocratic families based at Court, such as that of John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu (1690-1749) had three young Black servants during the same decade.

Listed in the Burlington household at this time were Joseph Caesar (baptised at Chiswick July 27, 1725) and Richard Tamerland (baptised at Chiswick May 8, 1726).  Caesar was a common name for men of African heritage in Britain and Tamerland was likely named for the titular character in the play by Christopher Marlow Tamburlaine the Great (1587/88), whose eponymous protagonist conquers Africa. This was a common practice at the time, and names associated with figures from the classical past served to other these men in both distance and time. It is likely that either one or both of Joseph Caesar and Richard Tamerland appear in William Kent's views of the gardens of Chiswick, made around 1730 (3).

Images 1- Portico of the Orange Garden Temple, Chiswick, William Kent, about 1738-41
2- Chiswick, design for Lady Burlington’s Flower Garden, William Kent, about 1730

Of the three Black servants in the household in the late 1730s, Cumberlidge seems to have been treated differently. He was the only one who could have been the right age to be the child represented in the painting — Caesar and Tamerland were probably in their late teens or early twenties by 1739 (4).  There is also evidence that Cumberlidge received six-pence “pocket money” each week over and above his salary and had his own press to store his belongings at Chiswick (5).  

A series of bills set out in his own hand dating from 1746 until 1756 indicate that, as an adult, he was given special responsibility for helping procure small items for the children of the 4th Duke of Devonshire and Charlotte Boyle. They also give a sense of his other responsibilities: travel (there are payments for turnpikes, powder and shot); books; prints; and feeding the birds (6).

James Cumberlidge’s Education

Known as “Jem” to the Countess and her husband, Cumberlidge’s arrival into the household in 1738 seems to have provided the motivation for three Black servants to receive instruction from a schoolmaster, Thomas Johnson, who charged for thirteen weeks between September and December that year.

The fact that three inkhorns were purchased, along with paper and pens, indicates that all three were taught to write. However, by March 1740, Cumberlidge was receiving private lessons from a new teacher, one “J. Stevenson”, whose lessons continued into at least April that year (7). 

Perhaps Cumberlidge was still young enough to learn with ease, and showed particular promise or talent. Stevenson’s bill reveals that Cumberlidge was being taught to read, write, and make accounts — preparation for his role as a trusted attendant. What it also indicates is that for the first decade of his life, Cumberlidge had not received any formal education — in marked contrast with the other children in this household whose birth and class will have ensured education from an early age.

Cumberlidge’s education may have been similar to that of his near contemporary Charles Ignatius Sancho (about 1729-1780) who was educated in the household of the Duke of Montagu and as an adult was an accomplished scholar and musician.

Stevenson’s bill of 1740 also records that a copy of Bishop William’s Church Catechism was purchased for Cumberlidge. This suggests that Cumberlidge was being prepared for baptism: knowledge of the catechism was a prerequisite for baptism for anyone but an infant, though at present, no record of his baptism has been found. 

Finding James Cumberlidge’s name

In the family portrait, Cumberlidge wears his livery— a uniform worn by public-facing household staff such as the butler and footmen.

On April 12, 1739, a tailor named James Hume billed the Countess of Burlington for new coats and breeches for her livery servants (8).  Of the six livery servants, three were named, though Cumberlidge’s name was incorrectly recorded as “James Cambridge the Black”. In fact, his name appears twice on the same bill, the second time simply as “James the Black”. His coat and vest needed to be cleaned and repaired, its lining and buttons replaced. 

This scribal mistake, made by a tailor who probably only met Cumberlidge to take his measurements and may have misheard his name, has caused a great deal of confusion since.

It has led two scholars to assume that this was James’s surname, whereas on all other occasions his name was recorded as Cumberlidge (9).  It is understandable why this mistake could have been made: Cumberlidge is a rather unusual name, Cambridge far more common (10).  On the one hand, this confusion has obscured his true identity, on the other, this unusual name makes it far easier to trace in the paper archive. It also allows us to speculate as to his story prior to entering the Burlington household.  

James Cumberlidge’s family and education 

In March 1738, a white man named Christopher Cumberlidge, “Gentleman of Fulham”, was buried at his parish church. His will, includes a series of cash bequests to his siblings and cousins that indicate he had the wealth to justify his claim to gentlemanly status (11).  

Not much is known about Christopher Cumberlidge, but legal proceedings launched against a Scottish sea captain called William Jones by Cumberlidge’s widow shortly after his death indicate that he was an investor in Atlantic trade (12).  In his will, Christopher Cumberlidge made a further and unusual stipulation:

 “I give unto my Trust Servant Thomas a Negro his Liberty and twenty pounds in money withall my wearing apparel to be paid to him in one year after my decease”. (13)

This grant of freedom is recognition that Black men and women born in or brought to Britain were still considered chattel property despite slavery not being recognised by English law.

Living in a state of slavish servitude, Black men and women were under the constant threat of either kidnap or sale into chattel slavery in Britain’s colonies. It is perhaps no coincidence that in 1741, the same year he was sued by Christopher Cumberlidge’s widow, the sea captain William Jones put out an advertisement in a Scottish newspaper seeking the recovery of a Black man called Caesar who had run away from him wearing “highland breeches and trews” (14).  It was through these networks of trade, investment and enslavement that Black men like Caesar and Thomas arrived on Britain’s shores. 

In 1738, Thomas found himself in an unusual position as a Black Briton: he had freedom and some resources. Although it is impossible to prove, it seems likely that he took the surname of his former master and soon put his son James into the household of the Countess of Burlington at nearby Chiswick.

What has not been known until now is that James had a brother who went by the name “Kitt”, or its longer form Christopher — another link to Thomas’ former master. We know about Kitt because of a letter written by the actor David Garrick (1717-1779), the sometime friend of the Burlingtons.

In September 1749, Garrick, who called James “Jimzy” wrote that he had seen: 

“…so much of Master Kitt at Chiswick, that I knew, when the Objects, which glar’d, & dazzled him at first from their Novelty, had ben more familiar to him, that he would find his tongue, & exert it w[th] much Spirit; however I don’t doubt but my Jimzy’s great knowledge of men & things, will keep in, in a proper Subjection; & tho I can’t hope to See Kitt so perfect a Creature as his Brother, yet if he is ye Second black Genius in y[e] World, it ought to Satisfye both him & y[r] Lady[p]”. (15)

Garrick’s letter attests to James’s intellectual abilities and suggest that his younger brother Kitt was starting to articulate himself in speech. It may well have been that James taught his younger brother — he certainly had responsibility for him. His bills to the Countess from 1755 record that James was receiving money for Kitt’s board (16).  Garrick’s letter was — like much of his correspondence — intended to flatter and placate the Countess, but provides the clearest evidence that she was committed to the education of these two members of her household.

The letter also gave warning to the Countess that “My Jimzy” was losing the affection of a servant called Sally, who had been seen in “amorous parle” with someone else called Charles (17).  While Garrick’s letter is gossipy and irreverent, it has a patronising tone with a dark contour.

At the time Garrick was writing, racist debates were ongoing within Georgian intellectual circles as to whether Black people were intellectually inferior to their White counterparts. In this light, both the Countess of Burlington’s motivation to educate Cumberlidge and Garrick’s inclination to judge its success might be seen as a form of Enlightenment experiment. That they might also have been benevolent towards James and Kitt Cumberlidge is one of the many complexities of dealing with the past. The Countess may have cherished James Cumberlidge but she also governed almost every aspect of his existence. He could not have left her household without her blessing, and so long as she lived, he was at her disposal, the precarity of his livelihood only heightened by the inherent dangers of being a Black person in Georgian Britain.  

Comparing group portraits

Augusta, Princess of Wales with Members of her Family and Household, Jean-Baptiste van Loo, 1739, oil on canvas © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2024 | Royal Collection Trust

L-R: The Hon. Arabella Herbert (d.1755), Prince George (1738-1820) later George III, Lady Archibald Hamilton (d.1755) holding Prince Edward (1739-1767), Augusta, Princess of Wales (1719-1772), Princess Augusta (1737-1813) , Sir William Irby, Vice Chamberlain to the Princess of Wales (1707-1775). 

Jean Baptiste van Loo painted another group portrait in 1739. The ambitious portrait of Augusta, Princess of Wales (1719-1772) with members of her family and household (above), may have been seen by the Countess of Burlington and provided inspiration for her own family portrait with James Cumberlidge.

In both paintings, the female patron is celebrated for her role in the management of her household and the education and upbringing of her children, something that was particular to British royal and aristocratic households (18).  For the Countess of Burlington, this clearly included young Black servants in her employment. This suggests that James Cumberlidge was more closely connected to Countess Burlington than he was to her husband.

Later years in the Burlington household and a new role

Cumberlidge’s final years in the employ of the Countess cannot have been easy. With her health failing and bereft of her husband and two daughters, the Countess became increasingly distressed and, in the summer of 1755, had a final falling out with Garrick.

Cumberlidge was briefly dragged into this dispute. The disagreement involved the circumstances of a servant leaving the Burlington household, and Garrick’s belief that the Countess had insinuated that he, Garrick, had encouraged their departure. Cumberlidge was sent to Garrick to make peace on the Countess’s behalf but was given a forceful dressing down by the actor for his troubles (18).  

The last references to Cumberlidge in the Burlington accounts come in 1756, in the form of payments to the gardeners, and a final bill in his own hand for small sundries, that included a book on drawing and two volumes of Johnson’s Dictionary (19). The Countess died two years later. 

In November 1759, Cumberlidge was appointed to the Royal Household as a trumpeter in ordinary to George II, one of a succession of Black musicians who had served in the Royal Household since the sixteenth century (20). This almost certainly came about because Countess Burlington’s son-in-law William Cavendish, future 4th Duke of Devonshire (1720-1764) was Lord Chamberlain, and the appointment of royal musicians was held in his gift. A portrait of the trumpeter of the 1st Troop of Horse guards in the Royal Collection gives a sense of what Cumberlidge’s livery would have looked like at around this time. 

Trumpeter, 1st Troop of Horse Guards, David Morier, about 1750, oil on canvas,
© Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2024 | Royal Collection Trust

Little is known of Cumberlidge’s life in the 1760s. By 1770 he had established himself as a property owner at Hersham, a village in Surrey in the parish of Walton upon Thames (21).  He continued to receive a pension from the Duke of Devonshire in the 1770s and collected his salary from the Royal Household until 1783.  

In Hersham, he lived with his wife Elizabeth and a son, James, who was baptised at the parish church of St Mary in 1781. This is where Cumberlidge was buried on July 6, 1788.

Although no will has been traced, his son James was recorded in the census of 1861 as living in the same area as an agricultural labourer, evidence of the staying power of Black Britons throughout the centuries.  

About Dr Edward Town

Dr Edward Town (FSA) is an art historian and curator. He currently serves as Assistant Curator of Paintings and Sculpture, at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut.

Acknowledgements

We’d like to express our gratitude to Dr Edward Town for this research. Like many studies, this one is based on archival evidence and our current understanding, and it remains an incomplete story.  

We will continue our work in this area and are always eager to hear from other researchers and institutions.

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References

(1) Lord Chamberlain Appointment Books TNA LC3/66 (67) (Appointment by Warrant of November 8, 1759); LC3/58; LC5/168 (28, 59, 84, 225); Bodleian Library MS LC5/25 (9, 68). 
(2) Richard Hewlings, “Who was Lord Burlington’s Black Servant?”, Country Life, January 8, 2024, pp. 64-65.
(3) In August 1727, Tamerlane was sent to a house of correction. It is not certain that he returned to the Burlington household. Payment for “coach hire twice to Tamerlane” and the house of correction payment appears in the Cash Book of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, 26 March 1725 - 13 August 1728, The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth BU/3/2/7, p.13.
(4) Notes of Sash Giles, Chatsworth, Derbyshire
(5) “The Right Honourable Countess of Burlington, Bill for Carpenters Worke done at Chiswick by John Meadows by Order of My Paine”. The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth BU/6/2/12 (item 5).
(6) The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, BU/6/2/17 (1-13).
(7) The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, BU/6/2/3 (1); BU/6/2/3 (2).
(8) Bill of James Hume, 1739. The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, BU/6/2/5 (8).
(9) Judy Egerton, “Boyle [née Savile], Dorothy, Countess of Burlington (1699-1758),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/66564; Richard Hewlings, “Who was Lord Burlington’s Black Servant?”, Country Life, January 8, 2024, pp. 64-65.
(10) Cumberlidge was sometimes recorded as “Camberledge”, so it is easy to understand the slippage to Cambridge.
(11) The National Archives, PROB 11/688/145.
(12) David Dobson, American Data from the Records of the High Court of Admiralty of Scotland 1675-1800, 2009, AC9/1514, p. 57. It is likely he was a relative of the Thomas Tompien Cumberlidge whose deceased father and namesake was a tobacconist of St James Clerkenwell in London. Given the regional specificity of the surname it is possible that he was the Christopher Cumberlidge baptized at Cannock, Staffordshire, on August 21, 1662.
(13) TNA PROB 11/688/145.
(14) https://www.runaways.gla.ac.uk/database/display/?rid=37.
(15)   David M. Little and George M. Kahrl, The Letters of David Garrick, Volume I, Letters 1-334, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1963, Letter 70, p. 122.
(16) The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, BU/6/2/17 (8).
(17) The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, BU/6/2/17 (8).
(18) David M. Little and George M. Kahrl, The Letters of David Garrick, Volume I, Letters 1-334, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1963, pp. 225-26.
(19) The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, BU/6/2/17 (13). Payments to gardener at Chiswick made “by the hands of James Cumberledge”, bills from 1755 and 1756 – the references are BU/6/2/6 (item 5), BU/6/2/6 (item 7), BU/6/2/6 (item 9).
(20) TNA LC3/58; LC5/168 (28, 59, 84, 225); Bodleian Library, Oxford MS LC5/25 (9, 68). Peggy Ellen Daub, Music at the Court of George II, Cornell University, 1985, p. 330. Cumberlidge took the place of Henry Kopp, who appears to have been German. For Black musicians see Peter Fryer, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain, Pluto Press, London and Stirling, VA, 1984, pp, 79-88.
(21) The evidence for this property comes from a series of documents relating to the estate of the Frederick Family at Burwood Park, Walton upon Thames: “Lease for 1 year Thomas Collins to James Cumberlidge April 16 1770”, Surrey History Centre MS 183/9/1-2; Memorandum by the House Steward to the Duke of Devonshire concerning bond by Jas. Cumberlidge to pay Mary Cumberlidge a Sum”, ca. 1775. Surrey History Centre MS 183/9/5.
(22) The National Archives AO 1/427/1.

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