Thomas H. Sloan MP

Thomas Henry Sloan became a Member of Parliament for South Belfast in 1902. Here be was photographed by the celebrity photographer of his day Sir (John) Benjamin Stone (1838-1914), Politician and photographer.  The portrait is one of a pair now held in the National Portrait Gallery and it shows Sloan as part of the delegation which visited Germany and then hosted a German delegation as part of a Church based Peace Mission. The picture shows Sloan at the height of his influence as a leader of Protestantism not only in Parliament but nationally. It was in this role that he was invited to be part of a high powered high profile delegation of clerics and laymen whose aim was to promote international peace. The context wad the arms race and increasing imperial ambition of Germany which some saw quite prophetically as leading to war between Britain and Germany. Protestant leaders like Sloan saw it as their duty to avert this and to use the shared Christian and particularly Protestant heritage as a means of peacebuilding. Despite meeting the Kaiser and hosting a return visit to London Germany continued to plan for War.

The picture was originally held until 1974 by the Library at the House of Commons and in turn donated to the National Portrait Gallery. The Gallery is a National Treasure founded in 1856, the aim of the National Portrait Gallery, London is ‘to promote through the medium of portraits the appreciation and understanding of the men and women who have made and are making British history and culture, and … to promote the appreciation and understanding of portraiture in all media’

It is fitting that Sloan should be found there, he was a Parliamentary pioneer – the first independent, working-class politician, and champion of rights and a faith leader who fought for international peace and stability.

‘Group of Church Representatives (Visitors to Germany and Friends)’

by Benjamin Stone
platinum print, 1 July 1909
6 1/8 in. x 8 in. (155 mm x 202 mm) image size
Given by House of Commons Library, 1974
Photographs Collection