Lewis Wingfield

Lewis Strange Wingfield (February 25, 1842 – November 12, 1891) was an Irish traveller, actor, writer, and painter.

Life

The third and youngest son of Richard Wingfield, 6th Viscount Powerscourt, by his wife, Lady Elizabeth Frances Charlotte, eldest daughter of Robert Jocelyn, 3rd Earl of Roden, he was born on 25 February 1842, and educated at Eton College and Bonn University. He was intended for the army, but gave up the career at the request of his mother, after her second marriage to Frederick Stewart, 4th Marquess of Londonderry the Marchioness of Londonderry. He then had many occupations.

Actor

On 21 August 1865 Wingfield was at the Haymarket Theatre Roderigo to the Othello of Ira Aldridge, the Iago of Walter Montgomery, and the Desdemona of Madge Robertson. He had previously played in the burlesque Ixion (F. C. Burnand). Reputed adventures were going to The Derby in blackface, spending nights in workhouses and pauper lodgings, and becoming an attendant in a lunatic asylum and prison.

Journalist

During the Franco-Prussian War Wingfield went to Paris, where he stayed through the siege, attending the wounded and qualifying as a surgeon. During the siege he communicated by balloon and otherwise with The Times, the Daily Telegraph, and other newspapers. After returning to London he went back to Paris immediately on hearing of the Paris Commune, and remained there until its suppression by French troops.

Artist

Having taken a house, No. 8 Maida Vale, with a large studio attached, Wingfield concentrated on painting, and became a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy. Between 1869 and 1875 he exhibited four domestic scenes at the Royal Academy, and one at the Suffolk Street Gallery. He planned during his stay in Paris for a panorama of the siege to be exhibited in London, and forwarded to England designs executed by various French artists. The failure of an American financier brought the scheme to nothing.