Braithwaite, Daniel (1731 -1817)
Daniel Braithwaite was born in Westmorland ca.1731. He moved to London in 1762, where he was appointed first secretary in the Post Office in 1765, and clerk to the Postmaster General in 1768. Braithwaite did well from his employment, enjoying the patronage of many post office dignitaries, as well as the painter George Romney, whom he introduced into middle-class professional circles, an important society group eager to commission portraits. By 1789 he had risen to Controller of the Foreign Department of the Post Office. His son, James, was appointed postmaster at New York, not long before the termination of the American Civil War.
Braithwaite had a house in London’s Harpur Street, and property in Ampthill, Bedfordshire. He was active in artistic circles as a patron and collector, and for a time was one of the proprietors of the European Magazine, with John Sewell and Isaac Reed.