(1729 - 1807), s. of Charles Gore (d. 1753/4) of Horkstow, Lincs; m. Mary Cockerell (d. 1785); Dilettanti 1781.
1773 - 9 Florence (Mar. 1773 - 1774), Rome (by Dec. 1774 - Jul. 1777) with visits to Naples ( - 12 Apr. 1777) and Sicily (Apr. - Jun. 1777) [Switzerland] Venice (Apr. 1778)
1782 - 3 Florence (after 28 Dec. 1782 - 19 Mar. 1783)
Gore, a cultured Lincolnshire landowner, had married Mary Cockerell, the heiress of a Scarborough shipbuilding family. It was the unsatisfactory state of her health which led them to spend the winter of 1772 - 3 in Lisbon and then to sail on to Italy. In March 1773, with his wife and three attractive young daughters, he arrived in Florence. His youngest child, Hannah then aged fifteen, there became engaged to the 3rd Earl Cowper (an event recorded in a group portrait by Zoffany; YCBA); they were to be married on 2 June 1775.
The family were in Rome by December 1774, when Father Thorpe commented on the presence of Mrs Gore and her 'three pretty daughters', each of whom, he alleged, had 'a fortune of £;50.000'.1 Philipp Hackert became the drawing master for Eliza (1754 - 1802) and Emily (1755 - 1832) at Castel Gandolfo during the summer and in Rome during the winter. William Pars may have also given them instruction.2 Their father became a close friend of Hackert, and Goethe described how the two spent two summers together at Castel Gandolfo and Albano making drawings from nature, while in the winter Gore spent most of his evenings at Hackert's house in a circle of artists discussing art and letters.3 Gore was himself an amateur artist of some distinction and this, with his interest in archaeology, led him to join Hackert and Richard Payne Knight on their expedition to Sicily between April and June 1777, see Knight. Gore's sketches from this tour (BMPL) were intended for publication.4
Meanwhile in 1776 Eliza's name had been linked with that of Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, but the affair was short lived, see Fetherstonhaugh. On 12 July 1777 the Gore family were said to be leaving Rome 'next week'.5 Among the many drawings by Gore preserved in the Goethes Kunstsammlungen, Weimar, is one of Venice dated 'Ascensiontide 1778', but the Gore family spent most of their last two years abroad in Switzerland, before arriving back in England in 1779.
Late in 1782 Charles Gore with his daughter Emily and Dr Thomas Bowdler made a hurried trip to Florence where Hannah, Lady Cowper, was thought to be unwell (see also Bowdler). 'They will find her quite recovered', observed Mann, 'and probably will lay hold of that opportunity to press my Lord [Cowper] to return to England'. The scheme, if it existed, did not succeed and in April 1783 Charles returned to England, apparently with Bowdler, while Emily stayed on with her sister.6 Gore eventually returned to the Continent, where his wife died in 1785. Six years later he settled with his daughter Eliza in Weimar, where Charles became one of Goethe's closest English friends. Both father and daughter died in Weimar.7
1. Thorpe letters mss (2 Dec. 1774*). 2. See A. Wilton, The Ashmolean, 20[1991]:16 - 7. 3. See C. Nordhoff and H. Reimer, J.P. Hackert, 1:23n. 4. See Knight, Expedition into Sicily, (ed.) C. Stumpf, [1986]. 5. Pelham letters mss, f.275. 6. Wal.Corr., 25:352, 390. 7. See Monatshefte, 43[1951]:27 - 37.
H.G. B