The Grafton Portrait

There was an Elizabethan portrait of a young man floating around Grafton for some years. It is believed that it was moved from the old royal manor house for safe keeping in 1643, prior to the manor coming under attack from Parliamentary forces, first to a house on the site of the present village hall, and later to another house near the White Hart. After a fire at that house in 1908 the portrait was again moved for safety and sent to a house at Winston-on-Tees in County Durham. It was here that the portrait came to the attention of a man called Thomas Kay, who wrote a book about it published in 1914.

What excited Thomas Kay was that the portrait was executed in 1588 and was of a 24 year old young man. These dates are painted on the portrait. He quickly associated 1564 with the year of Shakespeare’s birth and claimed that this could be an early portrait. The portrait is now on display in the John Ryland’s Library in Manchester.

It can be asserted with certainty that this painting is a genuine 16th century portrait. The association with William Shakespeare is an act of faith with no supporting evidence. Many young men were born in 1564 and the portrait could be of anyone born in that year. The arguments against the attribution are principally that in 1588 Shakespeare was an unknown actor who was possibly learning his craft as a writer. He was nowhere near prosperous enough at that date to afford the luxury of n expensive portrait, and in any case, the subject of the painting is quite expensively dressed, a further indication of a person of means. Many different families occupied the Grafton manor during the 17th century, but the most likely subject would be a member of the Crane family who were occupying the manor at the time of the civil war.