Lt. Col. James Stopford CB

Mysteries, One Solved and One Not

Until a few months ago this British officer was unnamed. Two researchers, Brian Patrick Duggan and Peggy Mathers, volunteered to try to identify him. Duggan first determined the officer’s rank from the details of his uniform; then he began to study the medals on his chest which, he found, indicated service in specific battles. Eventually, by a long and complicated process of cross-referencing, it was determined that the only lieutenant colonel who fought in certain battles and also was granted the Order of the Bath (signaled by another of the medals) was James Stopford. The identification was confirmed when Duggan found a depiction of Stopford in an old book of regimental history. The depiction matched this painting and may in fact have been based on it.

One of Stopford’s medals was first issued only in 1845, meaning that this painting could not have been made earlier. This raises a potential problem about attributing the unsigned painting to Jivan Ram. Known portraits of this type by Jivan Ram (which are rather similar in style to this one) date to the 1820s and early 1830s. Could he still have been painting such portraits a decade or more later? Further research may clarify the issue.