(1751 - 1800), o. surv. s. of Aland John Mason and Ldy. Elizabeth Villiers (who was cr. Vcts. Grandison [I] 1746 and Cts. Grandison [I] 1767); educ. Eton; m. 1772 Ldy. Gertrude Seymour Conway (d. 1793), dau. of 1st M. of Hertford; took name of Villiers 1771; MP 1774 - 80; suc. mo. 1782 as 2nd E.Grandison [I].
1783 Rome ( - Apr.), Naples (26 Apr. - 2 May - )
1792 - 4 Venice (17 - 20 Sep. 1792), Genoa (by 25 Oct. 1792 - Jan. 1793) [Switzerland Sep.] Naples (Nov. 1793 - Feb. 1794 - ), Rome (by May), Venice (by 28 May), Verona (Jun.)
Lord Grandison, a man of elegant and extravagant tastes, first visited Italy after succeeding to his mother's title and estates. He came to Naples from Rome in April 1783, bringing Allan Ramsay some pamphlets from James Byres; on 1 May he was with Ramsay at Herculaneum and the next day at Portici.1
He was next in Italy in 1792 with his sickly wife and fourteen-year-old daughter, Lady Gertrude Villiers. They were in Venice between 17 and 20 September,2 and from 'about the 25th' of October to January in Genoa, where Dr William Batt attended Lady Grandison.3 Mrs Porter and a Mrs Hatfield nursed her; her illness ('hysteria' and 'worms') prevented their intended departure for Naples in December, and they then determined to set off for 'Florence Rome & Naples' as soon as the cold weather relented.4 It appears they went instead to Switzerland, for it was there in September 1793 that Lady Grandison died.
Very soon afterwards Grandison returned to Italy with his daughter. They were in Naples in November; on 4 December John Farr Abbot, whose wife was then dying in Naples, visited 'Lord Grandison who having lately lost his Lady in a Similar Situation was extremely attentive to him'.5 By 24 December Grandison was receiving company twice weekly;6 in February Lord Granville Leveson Gower was telling his mother that he regularly supped at Lord Grandison's,7 while Lady Bessborough was then said to receive 'company on Mondays and Thursdays and Lord Grandison on Tuesdays and Saturdays'.8 Grandison was in Rome by May; he went on an excursion to Tivoli with Lady Webster and the Bessboroughs,9 and Lady Gertrude sat to Angelica Kauffman.(10) He was in Venice by 28 May,11 and Verona in June, intending to go straight to Salzburg and Munich.(12)
1. Ramsay jnl.mss (26 Apr., 1, 2 May 1783). 2. ASV is 765. 3. Ragley mss, cr114a/279 (medical reports of 10, 31 Dec. 1792, and 7, 14 Jan. 1793). 4. Ragley mss, cr114a/279 (letters from Grandison to H. Seymour-Conway, 10, 17, 24, 31 Dec. 1792, 4 Jan. 1793). 5. Bentham jnl.mss. 6. Connell 1957, 297. 7. Granville Letters, 1:86 (22 Feb. 1794). 8. Connell 1957, 297. 9. Holland Jnl, 1:124. 10. Kauffman 1924, 165. 11. ASV is 770. 12. Broadlands mss (Ct. Rumford, 9 Jun. 1794).