(1713 - 76), o. s. of Edward and Ldy. Mary Wortley Montagu; educ. Westminster; Leiden U. 1741; army officer 1743 - 8; Dilettanti 1749; m. 1 c.1730 Sally - (d. 1776), 2 1751 bigamously Elizabeth Ashe, 3 1762 in Alexandria, Catherine Dormer (Mrs Feroe), sep. 1773; MP 1747 - 68; travelled in the middle east 1763 - 5, 1768 - 73; d. Padua.
c.1731
1740 Venice, Florence
1762 - 3 Turin (by Apr. 1762), Rome (by Jul. - Oct. 1762 - ), Leghorn ( - Apr. 1763)
1765 - 6 Venice (Sep.), Pisa (Sep. 1765 - autumn 1766), Leghorn ( - autumn)
1773 - 6 Venice and Pisa (Jul. 1773 - Apr. 1776), Padua (d. 29 Apr.)
According to Horace Walpole, Montagu's mental parts were 'not proportionate', his characteristics ranging between linguistic brilliance and profligate squalor. He was several times in Italy. Soon after 1730, when he made his first marriage to a laundress, he was sent on a grand tour with his tutor John Anderson.1 In June 1740 his mother, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, then in Venice, found he had been in Venice and Florence in 'low company', running up debts.2
In January 1761, following the death of his father and as his mother prepared to return to England for the last time, he set out for Venice. His two boys were left in care in England but his eleven-year-old daughter and her 'governess', Miss Cast, accompanied him. He stopped first in Leiden, but he was in Turin by April 1762, studying Arabic and wearing a turban and a long beard. His daughter was already lodged with a priest at St Peter's, prior to taking the veil.3 He became involved in the controversy over an antique bust in Turin which bore Egyptian hieroglyphics, thought by John Needham to resemble Chinese ideographs, but Montagu would have none of it, and his scholarship attracted the admiration of Winckelmann in Rome.4 Montagu had reached Rome at least by July 1762, and he stayed until after October, placing his daughter in an Ursuline convent. In April 1763 he sailed from Leghorn for Alexandria, with Nathaniel Davison as his secretary-companion.5
He returned to Venice in September 1765 and became one of the sights of the city. 'His beard reached down to his breast, being of two years and a half growth, and the dress of his head was Armenian'.6 Montagu passed that winter in Pisa; he was later in Leghorn and in the autumn of 1766 he again sailed to Alexandria. He finally returned to Venice in July 1773 as a Mohamedan Turk. He continued to be a considerable attraction, his guests including the Duke of Gloucester. 'His beard', wrote Lady Mary Coke wrote in November, 'I am told, is a great length: he wears eastern dress, and sits with his legs across with a long pipe in his mouth'.7 In 1775 he sat to Romney (priv. coll.), artist and sitter discovering a mutual esteem,8 and M.W. Peters also painted him in oriental dress (priv. coll.). His final years were spent, as his mother's had been, between Venice and Pisa, and it was at Padua that he died on 29 April 1776.
1. J. Curling, Edward Wortley Montagu, 47. See also C. Sykes, Black Sheep, 153 - 71. 2. Montagu Letters, 2:193. 3. Curling (at n1) 163 - 4 (Wm.Robinson, 17 Apr. 1762). 4. Ibid., 165 - 8. 5. Wal.Corr., 22:76 - 7, 113. Curling (at n1), 168, 170. 6. S. Sharp, Letters from Italy, [1767], 9. 7. Coke Letters, 4:258. 8. Romney 1830, 123.