Pomfret, Thomas Fermor, 1st Earl of

(1698 - 1753), e. s. of 1st B. Leominster; suc. fa. 1711 as 2nd B.; Ch.Ch. Oxf., MA 1717; m. 1720 Hon. Henrietta Louisa Jeffreys (c.1700 - 61), dau. of 2nd B. Jeffreys; cr. E. of Pomfret 1721; KB 1725.

1718 - 19 Rome (by 18 Jun. - Nov 1718), Padua (15 Jan. 1719; 27 Mar.)

1739 - 41 Genoa (12 Jun. 1739), Leghorn (by 1 Jul.), Siena (18 Jul. - 20 Dec.), Florence (21 Dec. 1739 - 13 Mar. 1741), Rome (17 Mar. - 18 May), Loreto, Ancona (23 May), Bologna (27 May), Venice (5 - 20 Jun.) [England 9 Oct.]

As Lord Leominster Thomas Fermor travelled to Italy with Martin Benson (later Bishop of Gloucester).1 They were in Rome by June 1718, and on 29 September Leominster was expected to stay there for a further month. Dr John Hay then described him as 'a truely virtuous, sensible, and worthy young Nobleman, of a close application to his improvement'.2 Leominster was buying paintings in June, and in November William Kent, who had completed for him a Hercules and his Mistress Eola, said he had agreed to sponsor a sculptor who was also to assist Kent.3 Leominster and Benson visited Padua twice in 1719: on 15 January 1719 with St George Ashe and the latter's tutor, George Berkeley,4 and on 27 March 1719 with Compton Domvile.5 Leominster was back at Easton Neston when he married in July 1720.

On his second visit to Italy, when he was Earl of Pomfret, he travelled with his wife and two evidently attractive daughters, Lady Sophia (1721 - 45, who m. 1744 the 2nd Earl Granville) and Lady Charlotte Fermor (1725 - 1813, who m. 1746 the Hon. William Finch), 'the cleverest girl in the world; speaks the purest Tuscan, like any Florentine'.6 After a year in France they arrived in Genoa on 12 June 1739 and sailed on to Leghorn, arriving by 1 July. The Countess, a somewhat humourless lady with pretensions to scholarship, kept a factual travel diary and maintained a regular correspondence with Lady Hertford.7 In Florence they stayed at the Palazzo Ridolfi ('a vast palace and a vast garden', now the Ginori-Venturi) where Horace Walpole and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu visited them. They received company every Friday and in the winter they had 'a select set and a sixpenny pharo table'. Some thirty years later the 9th Earl of Winchilsea (Lady Charlotte's son) was shown the house by the elderly G.B. Uguccioni, who had been one of Lady Sophia's keenest admirers: the winter and summer apartments where Lady Pomfret held conversations and balls twice a week, the 'Great Colossus' and the Grotto in the garden, and 'a little room fitted up with shells &c that is underground & which you go through the Cellars to get at'; two of the rooms had been reserved for Charlotte and Sophia, one where they 'used to be sometimes Six hours without intermission reading and writing', and the other where they kept 'Canary birds'.8 In December 1740 they witnessed the severe floods in Florence, and they were then joined by their son George, Lord Leominster, until 27 February; in October he was still in Turin.9

In Rome the antiquarian Mark Parker escorted Lady Pomfret. She climbed into the dome of St Peter's, comparing it to 'a burning brass cauldron'; she met the artist-dealer Richard Dalton, with whom she supervised Lady Hertford's commissions, but she was also said to have let some artists down, including Masucci.(10) In May she visited the Pope's San Michele tapestry manufactory which she carefully described to Lady Hertford. She also found time to write a life of Van Dyck. They frequently saw the Abb? Grant, Lord Lincoln (who appeared to be much attracted to Lady Sophia) and George Pitt (who was struck by Lady Charlotte). Lady Pomfret left Rome with regret, 'and a wish to return before I die'. They passed through Bologna on their way to Venice (where they met Rosalba Carriera), and two weeks later they set out on their homeward journey.

After their return to England the Pomfrets 'corresponded much with Italy': Lady Pomfret sent Uguccioni a silver standish and the marchese Niccolini, the Florentine man of letters, copies of the Institution of the Knights of the Bath and the Hangings of the House of Lords.(11)

1. B. Porteous, Works of Thomas Secker, xxii. 2. McKay 1986, 246n, 247 (J. Hay, 18 Jun., 29 Sep. 1718). 3. Kent letters MSS (8 Jun., 16 Aug., 15 Nov. 1718). 4. Brown 1597, 1601 (15 Jan. 1719). 5. Brown 1612, 1614 (Benson `per la 2da volta'). 6. Walpole; Wal.Corr., 30:15n20. 7. Pomfret Corr. and Pomfret jnl.MSS. 8. Winchilsea letters MSS (20 Dec. 1772). 9. Wal.Corr., 30:7 and n33. Montagu Letters, 2:254. 10. Rose of Kilravock MSS, GD 125/26/1/18 (R. Dalton, 1 Jul. 1741). 11. Wal.Corr., 18:126.