Sir William Brooke O'Shaughnessy (1809-1889) was born in Limerick and educated in Edinburgh as a surgeon. As a talented surgeon in the East India Company his promotion was rapid, but his main interest was the development of the electric telegraph. In the early 1850's with the encouragement of Lord Dalhousie, O'Shaughnessy, as Director-General of Telegraphs to the Company, set up a network connecting Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. The first test of its importance came with the Indian Mutiny, it later being claimed that the 'telegraph saved India'. He was knighted in 1856, and retired to England five years later. This portrait has been traditionally dateable to 1847, in which case it must have been painted before the artist went to India circa 1854-1862.