Collections News
Portrait of Justice Bradshaw returns on loan to his home town
Justice John Bradshaw 1602 − 1659
Oil Painting on canvas by an unknown English artist.
This portrait is in our collection. It is a portrait of the a 17th century gentleman who famously became the Lord president of the High Court of Justice in 1649 and pronounced the sentence of death on King Charles 1.
Afterwards he was appointed the first President of the Council of State in 1649 although he later fell out with Oliver Cromwell over the dismissal of the Rump Parliament, and served as an MP for Cheshire during the 1650s.
He died in 1659 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. After the Restoration of the monarchy, his remains were disinterred and hung in chains at Tyburn.
History is written by the victors, so portraits of people like Justice Bradshaw survive by accident. Portraits of Commonwealth heroes were systematically destroyed. This may have survived by being a family portrait. It was bought by Mr Arthur Gomersal in the 1930s and bequethed to Buxton Museum and Art Gallery in the 1970s.
Until March 2011 it is on show at Stockport Story Museum in their exhibition Stockport: story of a market town. Then it returns to Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.