John Somerset Pakington, 1st Baron Hampton

Plate 92 of Vanity Fair, numbered Statesmen No. 40 and priced at sixpence, presents Sir John Somerset Pakington in full-length chromolithograph by Alfred Thompson ('ATn'). The caption reads: 'He was Chairman of Quarter Sessions and reconstructed the Navy.' — a pointed summary of a career spanning county magistracy and two stints as First Lord of the Admiralty under Derby. Thompson renders the elderly Conservative peer in a tan stovepipe hat, dark frock coat, and striped trousers, furled red umbrella in hand — the uniform of Victorian respectability. The caricature exaggerates a heavy jowl and prominent nose in the mode of the period, stopping short of ethnic grotesquerie. The tone is gently satirical rather than hostile, befitting a Tory grandee the magazine treats with establishment deference.