The sitter was the second surviving son of James, 7th Earl of Lauderdale (1718-1789) and his wife Mary Turner, daughter and co-heiress of Alderman Thomas Lombe. He pursued a successful military and political career which began with the 78th Highlanders in 1778 in India, where he fought against both Hyder Ali and the French under De Sufferein. With the outbreak of war with France he was transferred to the West Indies where he was appointed Brigadier General in San Domingo in 1797 and then Brigadier General in the West Indies in 1798. At the turn of the century he became involved in various schemes to support the French Royalists in expeditions against the French mainland, while rising in the military hierachy to become one of the Commissioners of the Board of Control in 1804. His administrative talents later led to successive appointments: Commander in Chief of Ceylon (1806), Governor of Malta (1813) where he was very effective in combatting the plague, and in December 1818 he was appointed Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands and Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean (excepting Gibraltar), a post which he held until his death in Malta in 1824.
For further information on the sitter see W. Lord, Sir Thomas Maitland, The Mystery of the Mediterranean, London, 1897.