(c.1720 - 1812) of Farleigh, Hants, illeg. s. of lt.-gen. Charles Churchill by Anne Oldfield (who d. 1730); educ. Westminster and in Geneva; army officer, cornet, Drag.Gds. 1726, lt. 1736; Dilettanti 1743; m. 1746 Ldy. Mary Walpole, illeg. half-sister of Horace Walpole; MP 1741 - 61.
1735 - 9 Turin, Florence (by 18 Aug. 1735), Siena (Aug. 1735 - Jan. 1737), Rome (winter 1738 - 9) [Geneva, by Oct. 1739],
Churchill entered Italy via Turin and had reached Florence by mid-August 1735, when he wrote to the Earl of Essex saying he would shortly be going to Siena.1 By January 1737 Churchill had been there for sixteen months, wrote Bristow, 'faisant ass?s de depense, et log? dans un mauvais auberge'.2 He went to Rome in 1738, possibly with George Lewis Langton, Lancelot Allgood and Edwin Lascelles, their names appearing together on Langton's tomb in the Protestant cemetery in Rome.3 Allgood and Lascelles were in Padua in October 1738,4 but Churchill was still in Rome during the winter of 1738 - 9, where Samuel Crisp became one of his intimates.5 By October 1739 he was in Geneva, one of 'The Bloods' with William Windham and his set.6
1. Add.27734, f.23 (18 Aug. 1735). 2. HMC Denbigh, 5:208. 3. Transcribed by RBF. 4. Brown 1986, 1987. 5. Macnaghten, 1 - 7. 6. Moore 1985, 129.