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George III in an Act of Beneficence c. 1792-5

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Date

c. 1792-5

Description

A watercolour showing George III and Queen Charlotte, accompanied by the Prince of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of York, visiting inmates of a county jail. A petition is being passed between the hand of a kneeling prisoner and that of the sovereign.
This watercolour may relate to an incident recorded in a mezzotint by Charles Howard Hodges, after Thomas Stothard, in the collection of the British Museum (inv. no. 2003,1031.4). Dating from 1793, the inscription on the mezzotint reads as follows:
During the late tour to Weymouth in the autumn of the year 92 their Majesties, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of York, &c., visited the County Jail at Dorchester, where, enquiring if there was any case of peculiar hardship amongst the prisoners confined for debt, a poor cottager (Wm. Pitfield) was pointed out, who had been confined upwards of seven years for the costs of an action amounting to £220. His Majesty, struck with the artless manner in which the poor old man related the story of his misfortune, not only relieved him at the moment, but before he quitted the town caused him to be liberated by paying the amount of the action.
Alternate title: 'Royal beneficence'
Descriptive Medium: 'Watercolour'