Thomas Fairbairn

Sir Thomas Fairbairn, 2nd Baronet (18 January 1823 - 12 August 1891) was an English industrialist and art collector.

Fairbairn was born in the Polygon in Ardwick, near the centre of Manchester. He was the third of eight surviving children of Sir William Fairbairn (1789–1874). His father was a Scottish engineer who moved to Manchester in the early 19th century, where he designed bridges, and established a business, William Fairbairn & Sons, that was involved in iron founding, boilermaking, ship building, and manufacturing steam locomotives. He was a nephew of Peter Fairbairn of Leeds - also an engineer like his brother - and first cousin of MP Andrew Fairbairn.

After a private education, Thomas Fairbairn worked in his father's businesses from 1840, and took charge of the firm's shipbuilding operation in Millwall. After a tour of Italy in 1841-2, he started to use his industrial wealth to collect paintings.

He married Allison Callaway on 23 March 1848 and settled back in Manchester. They had at least five children together. Two—his son Arthur and daughter Constance—were born deaf.

Fairbairn was impressed by the works of William Holman Hunt exhibited at the 1853 Royal Academy exhibition, and commissioned Hunt to complete his 1853 painting The Awakening Conscience, although he asked Hunt to repaint the expression of the female figure. He also persuaded Hunt to make changes to his 1854 painting The Scapegoat. Fairbairn commissioned a group portrait of his wife and five children from Hunt in 1864, which became his The Children's Holiday. Although he acquired portraits from Hunt, Fairbairn generally preferred Pre-Raphaelite landscapes and historical painting. He commissioned paintings by Edward Lear, and sculptures by Thomas Woolner, including a life-sized marble sculpture of his two deaf children in 1857-1862.

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