A Member of the Gore Family possibly Ralph Gore, 1st Earl of Ross (d.1802)

British (English) School. Oil painting on canvas (oval), A Member of the Gore Family, possibly Ralph Gore, 1st Earl of Ross (d.1802) by British (English) School, circa 1780/90. An oval, half-length portrait with the subject seated against a plain brown background. He is turned towards the left and looks in the same direction. He wears a white, powdered half-wig which is tied at the back with a black ribbon. His red, collared coat is edged with gold embroidery and has gilt buttons. It is worn over a white, satin waistcoat and a white cravat is tied at the neck. Ralph Gore, 1st and last Earl of Ross; son of Sir Ralph Gore, 4th Bt and Elizabeth Ashe; married, (i) Katherine Conolly, daughter of Rt. Hon. William Conolly and Lady Anne Wentworth, on 23 February 1754 and (ii) Alicia Clements, daughter of Rt. Hon. Nathaniel Clements and Hannah Gore. Sir Ralph Gore, 6th Bt., M.P., Earl of Ross, of the 2nd creation (1725-?1802) was the second son of Sir Ralph Gore, 4th Bt., M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer, and subsequently Speaker, of the Irish House of Commons, the inheritor through his mother, Hannah Hamilton, of the Island of Ballymacmanus on Upper Lough Erne, which he beautified and to which he gave the name Belle Isle, and his second wife, Elizabeth, only daughter of the Rt. Rev. St. George Ashe, Bishop of Clogher. As a young captain, he distinguished himself when catapulted into the command of a battalion at the battle of Laffeldt/Lawfeldt in 1747. He was ultimately appointed, as Lieut.-Gen., Commander-in-Chief in Ireland in 1788. He represented Donegal in the Irish Parliament, until raised to the peerage, as Baron Gore, in 1764. Advanced to Viscount Belleisle in 1768, and to Earl of Ross in 1772. He married first, in 1754, Catherine (†1771), daughter of the Rt. Hon. Thomas Connolly, who had no surviving children; and secondly, in 1773, Alice, daughter of the Rt. Hon. Nathaniel Clements, and sister of Robert, 1st Earl of Leitrim. She bore him his only son, Ralph, Viscount of Belleisle, who died without issue in 1789. Lord Ross died some time before 16 September 1802, when his peerages expired, but the baronetcy was inherited by another Ralph, eldest son of his younger brother, Richard. Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire (Accredited Museum)