(1732 - 1815), 4th s. of John, Ld. Hervey of Ickworth, Suff.; educ. Westminster and Corpus Christi Camb. 1751; army officer, lt.1755, lt.-col.1766, col.1777, gen.1798; served in N. America 1755 - 63; MP 1763 - 8; unm.
1766 Verona (10 Sep.), Padua (12 Sep.), Venice (13 Sep. - 4 Oct.), Verona (6 Oct.)
1772 - 3 [dep. London 29 Apr. 1772] Turin (Jun.), Genoa, Leghorn, Siena (2 Jul.), Florence (10 Sep.), Bologna (24 Oct. - 2 Nov.), Florence (by 3 Nov. - ), Capua (10 Dec.), Naples (16 Dec. 1772 - 11 Feb. 1773), Rome (13 Feb. - 28 Apr.), Perugia (1 May), Faenza (9 May), Venice (17 May - 3 Jun.) [Harwich 18 Nov.]
1788 - 90 Rome (by Dec. 1788 - Apr. 1790)
Blessed with 'one of the happiest contented tempers', William Hervey loved 'reading and improvements of all kinds', and was 'a curious observer and an accurate relater'.1 On his first visit to Italy he spent a month in the Veneto as part of an extensive tour made in 1766. His laconic journal described Padua as 'a vile town', and the pictures in the Doge's Palace in Venice as 'mostly spoilt'; he met his brother the 4th Earl of Bristol and his wife in Venice on 27 September.2
On his second, longer, visit to Italy in 1772 - 3 his journal remains factual (and statistical). He followed one of James Byres's courses in Rome with Richard Neville, John Staples and Thomas Orde and there are long descriptive passages concerning the pictures in Florence, Rome and Naples.3 'Il Colonello Hervey' passed through Capua on 10 December 17724 and 'Col. Harvey' was mentioned by Lord Winchilsea in Rome on 17 April.5 In 1787 Carlo Labruzzi dedicated to him a series of engravings of figures suitable for insertion into landscape paintings.6
In 1788 - 90 he was again in Rome, where William Danby noted his presence in December 1788 and on 6 March 1789,7 and where Elizabeth Gibbes saw him in November 1789 and April 1790.8
1. Hervey (Wm.) Jnl., xvi. 2. Ibid., 200 - 1. 3. Ibid., 234 - 7. 4. ASN cra 1259. 5. Winchilsea letters MSS. 6. F.J.B. Watson, Antique Collector, Jun. 1960, 97. Labruzzi. exh. cat., Drummond, London [1982]. 7. Danby jnl.MSS. 8. Gibbes jnl.MSS (19 Nov. 1789, 23 Apr. 1790).