Bulkeley, Thomas James Bulkeley, 7th Viscount
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- Bulkeley, Thomas James Bulkeley, 7th Viscount
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(1752 - 1822), posth. s. and h. of 6th Vct. Bulkeley [I] of Beaumaris, Anglesey; educ. Westminster and Jesus Oxf. 1769; m. 1777 Elizabeth Harriet Warren (c.1760 - 1826); MP 1774 - 1784; cr. B. Bulkeley 1784; took name of Warren-Bulkeley 1802.
1774 [Paris Jun. 1773] Florence (2 - 12 Jan. 1774), Rome (by 19 Jan.), Naples (7 Mar. - Apr.), Rome (by 16 Apr. - mid-May), Bologna (May), Venice (29 May - Jun.) [England by 9 Sep.]
1785 - 6 Venice (26 Oct. 1785), Florence (by 24 Nov.), Rome (by 30 Dec. 1785), Naples (Jan. - Feb. 1786), Rome ( - 31 Mar.), Florence, Milan (22 Apr. - 6 May), Genoa, Turin [England by Jul.]
The 7th Viscount Bulkeley first went to Italy in 1773 with George Grenville (later 1st Marquess of Buckingham), his contemporary at Oxford. Bulkeley was in Paris in June 17731 and arrived in Florence with Grenville on 2 January 1774.2 On 12 January they took their leave of Lady Mary Coke,3 and by 19 January they had reached Rome.4 On 7 March they arrived in Naples,5 where Grenville wrote that he was 'proud ... of the choice I have made of my friend, for since I have travelled with him I have never found in him one quality which I did not admire. We are on the happiest terms, and mean to continue our intimacy in England'.6 By 26 March Grenville thought that 'a few days more will be sufficient to show us everything that can be seen at Naples'. They had spent much of their time with Sir William and Lady Hamilton. By 16 April they were back in Rome, having made the journey from Naples in the remarkably short time of twenty-eight hours, in order to see St Peter's illuminated in honour of the visit of the Duke of Cumberland,6 with whom Grenville subsequently had several private conversations. According to Father Thorpe, Bulkeley and Grenville were upset not to be granted an audience with the Pope, having been taken by the Abb? Grant to an ante chamber where they waited two hours,7 but the Abb? maintained they did receive an audience. The Pope, he wrote on 18 May, had been 'amazingly polite to them and embraced me as if I was his brother. They are just gone for England and are much my friends. They are both most worthy and sensible young men.'8
While he was in Rome Bulkeley commissioned a monument (for St Bodfan, Aber) to his great friend the Rev. William Griffith, the rector of Aber. A portrait of Lord Bulkeley, painted at Rome in 1773, has been attributed to Romney (priv. coll.). Bulkeley evidently made other purchases (probably including a carved stone by Nathaniel Marchant9), since in May 1775 the Dowager Duchess of Beaufort told James Byres that she was hoping to receive some things 'through the means of Ld Bulkeley's case of Picatures'.(10) Bulkeley and Grenville arrived in Venice on 29 May, having passed through Bologna on their way.(11) Bulkeley then wrote 'I have terminated my Italian tour with every pleasure and every satisfaction which I could have expected from it'; he intended to leave Venice the next week and travel to England via Vienna,12 whence Grenville was writing to his uncle (Earl Temple) on 9 July. See also George Grenville.
Lord Bulkeley returned to Italy with his wife in 1785, their tour being described in his letters to Sir Robert Keith.(13) They reached Venice on 26 October via Vienna and Trieste, Bulkeley then recovering from a bilious attack (27 Oct.). By 24 November they had reached Florence, together with the Duchess of Ancaster and her daughter Lady Charlotte, Lord Northington and Mark Davis.14 On 6 December they were visiting the Uffizi.15 By the end of December they had gone to Rome,16 passing quickly on to Naples in January (31 Jan. 1786). There were some fifty or sixty British tourists there, and the Bulkeleys spent much time with Davis and Charles Grey, both of whom they had met in Vienna, and young Samuel Whitbread and his tutor William Coxe; there was talk of the rivalry between the Duchesses of Gloucester and Cumberland (31 Jan. 1786), and Bulkeley later wrote that such a fool as Cumberland 'ought to be shut up in Windsor Park' (8 Mar.).
Early in February they returned to Rome where Bulkeley frequented the Dowager Duchess of Ancaster who was 'at home every evening & the best English & French frequent her house'. He continued to see Davis, Grey, Whitbread and Coxe, but he was avoiding the 4th Earl of Bristol ('I know as little of him as I can help') and 'a numerous band of Birmingham English' (8 Mar.). They left Rome on the last day of March and arrived in Milan on 22 April, meeting his step-brother Robert Williams from Vienna (22 Apr.). They spent some time with the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, making an excursion with them to the Borromean Islands; they planned to leave Milan on 6 May for Genoa, then go on through Turin, Geneva, and Paris, to reach England at the beginning of July (28 Apr.).
1. NLM, Llanfair Brynodol MSS, c252 (Bulkeley, 7 Jun. 1773). 2. Coke Letters, 4:287. Gazz.Tosc. (8 Jan. 1774). 3. Coke Letters, 4:291. 4. Townley MSS (Jenkins letters to Townley). 5. SP 93/29 (Hamilton, 8 Mar. 1774). 6. Grenville Papers, 4:555; further letters, 556 - 64. 7. Thorpe letters MSS (30 Apr. 1774). 8. Seafield MSS, GD 248/226/4/2 (18 May
1774). 9. Marchant 1987, no.113. 10. Badminton MSS (30 May 1775). 11. ASV IS 760. 12. NLW, Llanfair Brynodol MSS, c253 (Bulkeley, 6 Jun. 1774). 13. Add.35535 for 1785 and Add.35536 for 1786 (dates given in brackets). 14. Gazz.Tosc., 26 Nov. 1785. 15. Quin jnl.MSS. 16. Add. 35535, f.331 (Davis, 30 Dec. 1785).