William Wells

Shipbuilder and art collector.

National Gallery Trustee (1835–1847).

William Wells was a ship’s captain for the East India Company. His brother John Wells (UCL Department of History, ‘John Wells’, in UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership [online], London 2020, <https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/44476> accessed 2 August 2021), a politician and banker, claimed for compensation as a partner in the London bankers Whitmore, Wells and Whitmore.

John Wells spoke against slavery: ‘On 17 Mar. 1826], when he commented that slavery was inimical to the liberty of the subject and ought to be abolished’. (Stephen Farrell, ‘WELLS, John (1761-1848), of 24 Lombard Street, London and Bickley Hall, Bromley, Kent’, in History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History [online], London, 1964 -, 1820-1832, <https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/wells-john-1761-1848> accessed 2 August 2021.) However, this stance does not fit with his claim for compensation as a partner in Whitmore, Wells, and Whitmore; the co-existence of anti-slavery sentiments and claims for compensation simply illustrate the complexity of Britain’s relationship to slavery in the early nineteenth century.

Donor: bequeathed in 1847: NG214.

Former owner: the following works formerly in Wells' collection are now in the National Gallery: NG775, NG796, NG946, NG1000, NG1689, NG2533 and NG2542.

History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History, London 1964-, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/
Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website

D. S. Macleod, 'Wells, William', in J. Turner et al. (eds), Grove Art Online, Oxford 1998-, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T091110
Checked and found — Item on publisher's website

D. S. Macleod, 'Wells, William', in C. Matthew et al. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 1992-, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/62873
Checked and found — Item on publisher's website

UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership, London 2020, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website