Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Lloyd, Colonel of the Leeds Volunteers, 1801 (oil on canvas)

Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Lloyd, Colonel of the Leeds Volunteers, 1801. Oil on canvas by John Russell (1745-1806), 1801. The Leeds Volunteers were raised in 1794. Thomas Lloyd (1751-1828), a Leeds cloth merchant from Horsforth Hall, commanded the regiment from the outset until the conclusion of hostilities against France in 1802, when it was disbanded. Shortly before this, the combined strength of officers, men and non-commissioned officers commissioned this portrait of their commander ‘as a present to the Colonel’s Lady’ and it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1802. In 1803, war broke out with France again and a corps of Volunteers was raised again, with Thomas Lloyd once more assuming command. A force of 1,400 was equipped and trained to meet the threatened invasion of England. Although on a war footing from 1804, they mostly carried out fire-fighting duties. In 1805 Lloyd resigned his command, owing to ill health, and this time was presented with a gold snuffbox by the regiment ‘as a mark of respect and approbation’.