William Van Mildert (1765–1836), Bishop of Durham (1826–1836)

William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham and painted by Lawrence around 1826 at Durham University, holds a unique place in British ecclesiastical and educational history as both the last Prince-Bishop of Durham — the final holder of the medieval palatinate office that effectively ended with his death in 1836 — and the founder of Durham University. His decision to endow the university with the episcopal castle and significant personal income in 1832 created the third university in England, breaking the Oxford and Cambridge duopoly that had prevailed since the medieval period. The timing was not accidental: the Reform Act of 1832 was already threatening to dismantle the established church's privileges, and Van Mildert's educational foundation was partly a preemptive demonstration of the church's social utility. Durham University's possession of this portrait creates the most direct possible connection between the institution and its founder — Lawrence's image of the bishop who created the university hanging in the buildings that his episcopal endowment made possible. The portrait documents the end of one form of English ecclesiastical power and the beginning of another, more modern institutional expression of the church's educational mission.

The posthumous nature of the work is apparent in a certain stiffness of handling compared to Lawrence's autograph portraits. The face lacks the animated quality of a painting done from life, though the composition and general treatment follow Lawrence's portrait conventions for senior churchmen.