Sir Elijah Impey (1732-1809), youngest son of the East India merchant of the same name, was educated at Westminster School (where Warren Hastings was amongst fellow pupils) and was elected a King's scholar in 1747. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1756 and was called to the bar in the same year. In 1773 the bill of the regulating act of the government of India was passed and Impey was appointed the first chief justice. He was knighted in 1774 and arrived in Calcutta in October. Impey was engaged in controversy with Hastings as to the respective authority of the Supreme Court and the Council of India and Impey set sail for England with his wife Mary (daughter of Sir John Reade of Shipton Court, Oxfordshire and by whom he had five children) in 1783 and in 1789 resigned his office. In 1790 he entered the House of Commons as M. P. for New Romney which he retained until 1796. He died at Newick in 1809.

The Impey family are recorded four times in Ozias Humphry's fee book; in 1768 Mr Impey Senr. paid #12.12.00, the same fee was paid by a Mr Impey on 5 December; the following year, a Mrs Impey was painted and in 1770 another portrait of a Mr Impey

The Impeys and Humphry were close friends and it was Sir Elijah Impey who encouraged Humphry to go to India in 1785. "He has been on Sunday last with Sir Elijah and Lady Impey who are old friends of mine. They speak with raptures of the Climate and of every other circumstance in India, and are to return again in the Spring".