On December 29, 1838, New Brunswick lumberjacks were spotted felling trees on the estate that had formerly belonged to First Barbary War hero William Eaton.
But he bought two other Landseers, of the 31 in the 86 lot sale, and two of the next most expensive works, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833) by Paul Delaroche (lot 78, £1,575), and Cromer Sands by William Collins (lot 15, £2,205), now in Tate Britain.
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Eaton seems to have begun collecting seriously in the 1870s, and a visitor in 1902 reported that his house in Prince's Gate was dominated by his collection, the best hanging in frames such that there was "no more hanging room", and others were "stacked in great heaps" or in "great portfolios".
William Shakespeare | William Laud | William Blake | William | William III of England | William Morris | William McKinley | William Howard Taft | William Ewart Gladstone | William the Conqueror | William S. Burroughs | William Shatner | William Faulkner | William Randolph Hearst | William Wordsworth | William Tecumseh Sherman | William Hogarth | Prince William, Duke of Cambridge | William Penn | William Jennings Bryan | William Gibson | William Wilberforce | William James | William Makepeace Thackeray | Fort William | William Hanna | William Hague | William III | William Hurt | William Walton |
Cheylesmore died in October 1891, aged 75, and was succeeded in the barony by his second son William.
The last owner was a lawyer, William Eaton Mousely, twice Mayor of Derby, who, after making some alterations in the 1830s, had the house demolished in 1854, believing Exeter House to be too large to maintain, and also to allow improvements to Exeter Bridge.
This house was subsequently occupied by an ancestor of the late celebrated William Strutt, esq., and by other families, and is now the residence of William Eaton Mousley, esq., to whom it belongs.