(1736 - 1803), yr. s. of 1st D. of Bridgewater; suc. bro. 1748 as 3rd D.; built the Worsley - Manchester ship canal 1760 and the Manchester - Liverpool canal 1762 - 72; unm.
1754 - 5 [dep. Nice Oct. 1754] Florence ( - 8 Nov. 1754), Rome (Nov. 1754 - Aug. 1755) with visit to Naples (by 22 Jul. 1755)
'Ignorant, awkward and unruly' the young 3rd Duke of Bridgewater was accompanied on his grand tour by Robert Wood, the much-travelled antiquarian and archaeologist. Bridgewater was tubercular and somewhat intemperate, and Wood attended him carefully through France in 1754.1 They left Nice in October and spent a short time in Florence, leaving on 8 November 1754, disgusted at finding the city so empty of society.2 They went on to Rome taking lodgings in the Casa Guarnieri where Robert Adam was also staying.3 Adam, in his own words, became 'very thick' with the Duke, 'who had a great opinion of my judgement in matters of taste and has laid out some hundreds by my advice'. The Duke engaged to buy drawings from Cl?risseau to the value of £;50 and from P?cheux to the value of more than £;60, and began to talk of having a room entirely devoted to pictures by the best masters. He then suffered a relapse, during which he was also attended by Thomas Brand (1717 - 70), a family acquaintance who happened to be in Rome. By 24 May he was better, although he remained on a diet until July. With Adam he saw the illumination of St Peter's at the end of June and the Girandola firework display at the Castel Sant'Angelo; he had taken windows in the Farnese Palace for the firework displays which concluded both these days, and had invited the English ladies to attend. In the third week of July 1755 the Duke arrived alone in Naples,4 but he had returned to Rome by August, when he was suddenly called home. 'I was constantly with him for some days before he left', wrote Adam, 'receiving commissions and settling on things which he wanted my advice or assistance on. He has left orders for above a thousand pounds with his antiquarian who is to do nothing without my consent and approbation'. Bridgewater also left Adam 'between four and five dozen of exceeding good claret, with the promise to do everything for me he possibly could whenever it lay in his power'.
Commissions in the Duke's name were subsequently received by Joseph Vernet for four pictures in 1756,5 but the Judgement of Paris which Mengs was painting for him in 17576 and Gavin Hamilton's 'large pictures for the Duke of Bridgewater' which occupied him in 1758 (including the Anger of Achilles, completed by 1765),7 are now lost. The Duke's enthusiasm for the fine arts quickly passed. Adam never heard from him again and he is said never to have unpacked his purchases when they arrived back in England. In his final years, however, he returned to buying paintings, and the Bridgewater collection was to become one of the richest in the country.
1. See H. Malet, Bridgewater: the canal Duke, 9 - 19 (quoting letters from Wood to Ld. Gower). 2. Wal.Corr., 20:451. 3. Fleming, Adam, 151, 176 - 8. 4. SP 93/14 (Gray, 22 Jul. 1755). 5. Lagrange, 174, 363, 462. See J. Cornforth, CL, 9 Jun. 1966, 1471. 6. Winckelmann Briefe, 1:261 (12 Jan. 1757). 7. Lyte letters MSS (1 Mar. 1758). Connell 1957, 55.