The sitter was the eldest son of Sir Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave (1755-1831). He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, and entered Parliament in 1818 as MP for Scarborough. He supported parliamentary reform, and held numerous government posts, including Governor of Jamaica (1832-4) and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1835-9). He was transferred to the Home Office in 1839, where he remained until the fall of the ministry in 1841. Thereafter he became ambassador at Paris (1846-52), and minister at Florence (1854-8), in which posts he was thought to have meddled too much in the politics of foreign states. He was created Marquis of Normanby on 25th June 1838.
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