Miniature Portrait of William Gooch (1716-1742)

Date1742-1746 [n. 10]

Studio of Christian Friedrich Zincke (1683/4-1767)

MediumEnamel on copper in gold frame (or case)

DimensionsOval, Sight: 1 3/4 x 1 7/16in. (4.4 x 3.7cm) and Framed: 2 1/16 x 1 3/4in.

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number2000-39

DescriptionA bust-length portrait in oval format of a young man turned a quarter towards the viewer's right, his eyes towards the viewer. He wears a dark, collarless coat with white ruffled shirt and white neck cloth and a wig. The enameled image retains its original gold frame (or case), which is inscribed around its perimeter.

Label TextThe subject was the only child born to Sir William Gooch (1681-1751) and his wife, Lady Rebecca Staunton Gooch (d. 1775). Ten-year-old "Billy" Gooch came to Williamsburg with his parents when his father took up the post of Lt. Gov. of Virginia in 1727. (The elder Gooch remained in office for 22 years, the longest term in the colony's history).

By all accounts, Billy was a credit to his family. Of him, Lt. Gov. William Gooch wrote "As a Christian, he was Pious, Just and Charitable: as a Gentleman, good-natured, sober and of good manners, and besides, a great Proficient in the Mathematicks, for which he had a surprising Genius, understood all the polite accomplishments, such as Dancing, Riding and Fencing, making by his Height, near Six Foot, shape and air, a very genteel appearance in any of those Exercises" [n. 1].

In 1740 [n. 2], Billy married Eleanor Bowles (b. about 1723 [n. 3]), daughter of James Bowles (?-ca. 1727/1728) and his second wife, Rebecca Addison Bowles (1703-?) of "Sotterley" plantation in St. Mary's County, Maryland [n. 4]. The young married Gooches lived with his parents in the Governor's Palace [n. 5].

On October 17, 1742 [n. 6], Billy, aged 26, died of the "bloody flux" (dysentery), leaving a six-months-pregnant wife. Eleanor's and Billy's infant son (who was also named William) died within a year's time and was buried beside both his young father and his great-great uncle Major William Gooch (d. 1655, aged 29), Lt. Governor Sir William Gooch having been named after the latter.

The place of these burials had once been the chancel of the Yorke parish church, situated on a small rise above Wormley Creek, near Yorktown (now part of the Coast Guard Reserve Training Center). At least two churches had been built at the site, but by the 1690s Yorktown, with its superior harbor, had displaced Yorke as a community center, and by the time Lt. Gov. William Gooch became aware of his uncle's final resting place, the church was gone, only the gravestone remaining intact [n. 7].

By 1749 when Sir William and Lady Rebecca Gooch returned to England, Lady Gooch's brother Robert Staunton had also been buried at the site [n. 8].

Lady Gooch's will, made out August 12, 1773, includes the statement that " . . . I would bequeath wherewith to repair and keep up the Burying place at York in Virginia where my dear son and grandson and brother lie but have met with such ill usage in relation to it already as convinces me it will never be put to the right use[;] therefore I omit it but as a small token of my Remembrance to the place of his education I give to William and Mary College in Virginia my Gilt Sacrament Cup and put in a Red Leather case and a large Foll: Bible of Fields bound in four volumes" [n. 9].

InscribedThe border of the gold case is engraved in script: "Wm Gooch Esqr only Son to Sr Wm Gooch Bartt Obt Octr 17. 1742 Aet 27".
ProvenanceBequeathed by the subject's mother, Lady Rebecca Gooch, to her great-nephew by marriage, William Gooch (?-?), second son of Sir Thomas Gooch, 3rd Bt. (1720-1781)[n. 12]. Nothing is yet known of this William Gooch (?-?), including how and when the miniature willed to him was eventually returned to the titled Gooch line of descent at "Benacre Hall," whence it was sold (see preface to Sotheby's sale catalog, pp. 10-23).

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