(1769 - 1856), s. of Blayney Townley Balfour (1744 - 71) of Dublin; Trin. Oxf. 1786; suc. gd.-fa. Blayney Townley-Balfour of Townley Hall, Co.Louth, 1788; m. 1797 Ldy. Florence Cole, dau. of 1st E. of Enniskillen [I]; MP [I] 1797 - 1800.
1791 - 2 [dep. Dublin, 6 May 1791; dep. Nice, 24 Nov.] Genoa (25 Nov. 1791), Turin, Parma, Modena, Bologna, Florence, Rome (Apr. 1792), Venice (23 - 29 May) [Ireland Oct.]
Before going to Italy, Balfour had spent some time in Switzerland and made a 'post-chaise tour' of Germany and France in 1788, the year he succeeded his grand-father to the family estates in Ireland. He returned home in 1790 and the following spring set out again on an extended Continental tour with his mother and two sisters and their friends. But while the rest of the party returned home from Nice, Blayney went on into Italy.1
He kept a perfunctory journal, 'Tour thro Italy, begun in the month of November 1791',2 describing his progress. At Parma he found many of Correggio's famous frescoes had 'suffered so much and are so high and in such dark places that it is difficult to see them', and at Modena he noted that, following the sale of the more important d'Este pictures to Stanislaus II of Poland [in 1745 - 6], 'all the good pictures have been taken from the Churches both of Modena and Reggio' to fill up the spaces. He found Bologna 'rich in good pictures and Churches', adding 'as I shall pass by Bologna in returning I will leave it now, to take the road to Florence', and at this point his journal ceases. In Rome in April he commissioned James Playfair to make designs for Townley Hall (one of which is dated 13 April 1792). He was in Venice late in May 1792 with a Mr Meade,3 and he was back in Ireland in October.
1. See F. Mitchell, Bull. of the Irish Georgian Soc., 30[1987]:10 - 12. 2. Townley Hall papers (NLI, ms 9593). 3. ASV IS 761.