(c.1695 - 1749) of the Homme, Herefs., o. s. of 1st B. Carpenter; army officer, cornet 3 Hussars 1704, lt.-col. 1 Ft.Gds. 1715; MP 1717 - 27, 1741 - 7; m. 1722 Elizabeth Petty; FRS 1729; suc. fa. 1732 as 2nd B.
1717 Genoa (Oct. - 1 Nov.), Leghorn, Bologna (by 26 Nov.), Florence
Shortly after becoming MP for Morpeth in April 1717, Carpenter travelled in the Low Countries, France and Italy, apparently as a charge of the Jacobite Duke of Gordon (see Alexander, Marquess of Huntly). In September 1717 the Earl of Mar was told it was 'odd that he [Gordon] should carry young Carpenter about everywhere with him'.1 By the end of October the Duke of Gordon and Carpenter were reported in Genoa, and they left by felucca for Leghorn on 1 November 1717.2 (George Carpenter is not to be confused with his near relation, Colonel Robert Carpenter, who died at the battle of Fontenoy in 1745).
The anonymous manuscript 'Remarks on severall parts of Flanders; Brabant; France; and Ittally. in the year 1717'3 has been attributed to Carpenter. It describes a tour made through Paris, Turin, Alexandria, Genoa, Lerici, Viareggio, Leghorn, Pisa, Florence, Siena, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Milan and Turin. From Paris the diarist travelled with Thomas Dixon (who was wounded at Modena and later died at Turin). In Florence he noted the excessive jealousy of Florentine men, who locked up their wives in Centerone 'more here than they doe in any other part of Ittally: they are sold as publickly in the shopps as shoes are in England'. In Rome he described an audience with the Pope ('one of the Politest Princes and Finest Gentlemen in Europe') and commented on various Roman customs, the high incidence of murders, castrato singers and bawdy houses; he also had standard praise for the classical splendours of the city.
1. HMC Stuart, 4:541; 5:15, 47. 2. SP 79/8 (Henshawe, 2 Nov. 1717). 3. Bodl., MS.Douce 67.
