(1719 - 95), 2nd s. of 1st B. Conway; educ. Eton; army officer, lt. 1737, col. 1746, maj.-gen. 1756, gen. 1772; gov. Jersey 1772 - d.; m. 1747 Ldy. Caroline Campbell (1721 - 1803), dau. of 4th D. of Argyll [S] and wid. of 4th E. of Elgin [S] and 3rd E. of Ailesbury; MP 1741 - 84.
1751 - 2 [Minorca August 1751] Genoa, Lerici, Leghorn (late autumn), Florence (1 Dec. 1751 - 8 Jan. 1752), Rome (Jan. - Feb.), Bologna, Turin [England mid-Mar.]
In July 1751 Horace Walpole recommended his cousin Colonel Henry Conway to Horace Mann; Conway was joining his regiment at Minorca, 'but is determined to reckon Italy within his quarters'.1 When Conway arrived in December, Mann persuaded him to stay at the Casa Manetti: 'we divided the whole house, and are both at large'.2 Through Mann's contriving, Conway studied medals with Dr Cocchi, but told his brother 'as I never think of being a medallist, I am not much concerned about it ... There are but two things at all thought of here - love and antiquities, of which the former predominates so greatly that I think it seems to make the whole history and the whole business of this place'.3 On learning he was soon to command a new regiment, Conway left Florence with Lord Stormont to visit Rome, where they lived some weeks 'totally employed in virtu', dispensing with 'all civilities that would make them lose any time'.4 He was back in England in mid-March 1752, Walpole then finding him 'much leaner and great cracks in his beauty'; in August Mann sent on a case of alabaster vases and a box of books to Conway in England.5
1. Wal.Corr., 20:264. 2. Ibid., 292. 3. Ibid., 20:297n5; 37:323n6. 4. Ibid., 20:298. 5. Ibid., 309, 329.