The Muston Family

A fine family group of four portraits: the parents – James and Mary Ann Muston – painted by Charles Foot Tayler in 1821 and their two daughters – Agnes and Matilda Lewis – painted by Miss Mary Millington around 1830.

James Muston was born in 1751 and was an upholsterer, mattress maker and cabinet-maker in Hatton Gardens, London. He was also a governor of the Asylum for Deaf and Dumb Children of the Poor in Bermondsey. He married Mary Ann Hoskins in 1795. Mary Ann was born in 1778 and so was considerably younger than her husband whom she married when she was seventeen years old. James and Mary Ann had eight children – two boys and six girls – born between 1800 and 1813.

Born in October 1807, Agnes was the third daughter. She went on to marry John Jays Slocum, an American-born clergyman, in 1838. Born in November 1812, Matilda Lewis was the youngest child. She died in 1831 when just eighteen years old.