A half-length portrait of Admiral Lord Nelson's paternal grandfather, shown turned to left in a black gown and white clerical bands. He wears a grey full-bottomed wig and looks directly out of the picture space to meet the gaze of the viewer. The sitter, who married Mary Bland (see BHC3882) was the rector of Hilborough, Norfolk, from 1734 in which he was succeeded by his son Edmund - the Admiral's father, who moved to Burnham Thorpe shortly before his famous son's birth in 1758: other members of the family succeeded to Hilborough until 1806. This is one of a number of portraits, both original and copies, of members of the Nelson and Suckling families, formerly in the collection of the Earls Nelson at Trafalgar House, Wiltshire: they were purchased for the Museum in 1948.