Unknown - portrait of Field Marshal Sir John French

This miniature portrait is unsigned, but the sitter is Field Marshal Sir John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres (1852-1925) who was an important British military commander during World War I and Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force. He was succeeded in December 1915 by his then deputy Sir Douglas Haig. French subsequently held the position of Commander of the British Home Forces.

He was born in Ripple Vale Kent on 28 Sep 1852 and married Eleanor Anna Selby-Lowndes (1845-?) the daughter of a Buckinghamshire magistrate in 1880, she being seven years his senior. They had one son.

For more about him see Sir John French, which is part of an excellent website about the First World War at First World War.com - A multimedia history of World War One

The miniature was probably copied from another portrait, but the original has not yet been located. 773