Engraving of the Reverend Joseph Stratton

Fact Check: Does the Wikipedia image of Reverend Joseph Stratton actually depict him?

Claim:
The engraving shown on Wikipedia’s page for Reverend Joseph Stratton depicts him.

Verdict:
🔴 False

Summary:
The engraving used on Wikipedia was taken from the National Portrait Gallery’s collection¹, where it is simply titled “Reverend Stratton.” The mezzotint was created by Thomas Goff Lupton (1791–1873), after a painting by John Linnell, and is dated mid-19th century.

This immediately rules out Reverend Joseph Stratton (1839–1917), who was still a student at Worcester College in 1861 and not ordained until 1870. There is no reason Lupton—an established engraver—would have produced a portrait of an unknown undergraduate.

While the sitter could conceivably be another clergyman named Stratton, such as John Young Stratton (1829–1905), there is no evidence to confirm this either. What is certain is that the Wikipedia editor who added the image failed to credit the National Portrait Gallery, misattributed the subject, and neglected even the most basic verification.

This serves as a warning about the poor standards of research and accountability that pervade Wikipedia. Articles are routinely edited by anonymous users hiding behind aliases, with no requirement to disclose qualifications or cite original sources. Entries are not peer-reviewed, and errors can remain unchallenged for years, replicated endlessly across academic papers, books, and AI-generated content.

The result is an ever-expanding archive of misinformation that undermines serious historical work. In this instance, an image from a national collection has been stripped of its provenance and carelessly rebranded as something it is not — a level of scholarship that would never pass even the most casual editorial check in a printed publication.

Credit:
Image © National Portrait Gallery, London. Engraved by Thomas Goff Lupton after John Linnell.

1. https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw207645/Reverend-Stratton ↩︎