(1722 - 91), o. s. of 1st E. of Strafford; sty. Vct. Wentworth - 1739 when suc. fa. as 2nd E.; Ch.Ch. Oxf. 1740; m. 1741 Ldy. Anne Campbell, dau. of 2nd D.of Argyll [S]; Dilettanti 1741.
1741 Rome (by 13 Jan.), Leghorn, Pisa, Lucca, Florence (mid-Feb. - 5 Mar.), Bologna [London by 28 Apr.]
Lord Strafford was travelling with a Danish governor, Grevenkop. They were in Hanover in September 1740, anticipating passing through Florence that winter; they were to be back in England in March and proposed travelling through Italy and France before then - 'a pretty notion a young man can have of foreign countrys by this way of travelling!'1
Strafford was in Rome by January 1741, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu noticing that he was behaving 'really very modestly and genteelly, and has lost his pertness he acquired in his mother's assembly'.2 It was from Strafford's box at the opera in Rome that Joseph Spence observed the Pretender.3 On leaving Rome, Strafford went to Leghorn, Pisa and Lucca, although Lady Mary had thought he was to go straight to Florence.4 Strafford arrived in Florence from Rome in mid-February 1741, 'looking extremely young to be married', wrote Lady Pomfret, 'but talks very well, and is well bred'.5 (Strafford was to marry in England on 28 April, when he was nineteen years of age). On 5 March he left Florence for Bologna.6 Strafford had apparently commissioned four marble copies of classical statues while he was in Italy,7 and he bought some scagliola pictures.8 Later, in 1755, he was buying pictures in Rome through an agent, see Thomas Brand (1717 - 70).
1. SP 105/281, f.97 (W. Blair, 9 Sep. 1740). 2. Montagu Letters, 2:220. 3. Spence Letters, 342 (13 Jan. 1741). 4. Montagu Letters, 2:230. 5. Pomfret Corr., 2:277 (26 Feb. 1741). 6. SP 98/44 (Florence Newsletter, 5 Mar. 1741). 7. See H. Honour, Connoisseur, 141[1958]:224, 226n24. 8. Wal. Corr., 18:13.