(1736 - 1807) of Glynnllivon, Caer., e. s. of Sir John Wynn; Queens' Camb. 1754; MP 1761 - 80, 1796 - 1807; m. 1 1766 Ldy. Catherine Perceval (d. 1782), dau. of 2nd E. of Egmont [I], 2 1786 Maria Stella Petronilla Chiappini; suc. fa. 1773 as 3rd Bt.; FSA 1774; cr. B. Newborough [I] 1776.
1759 - 60 Turin (Oct. - 12 Nov. 1759), Genoa, Milan (by 1 Dec. 1759), Florence, Naples (by 1 Jan. - Feb. 1760), Rome (mid Feb. - May), Florence (25 May), Bologna, Venice ( - by 25 Jun.), Florence (Jul.), Venice (over three weeks), Verona [Munich, Oct.]
1782 - 91 Florence (by Apr. 1782 - late 1791)
For his first tour of Italy as Thomas Wynn, see James Grant of Castle Grant.
In 1782, as Lord Newborough, heavily in debt through his obsession with fortifications and the Caernarvon Militia, he went off to Italy with his ten-year-old son John (1772 - 1800, m. 1793 Lena Vanderdauky) and, apparently, his wife. But Catherine, Lady Newborough, died on 30 April 1782, at the age of thirty-two, and was buried in the Leghorn cemetery.1 Newborough's behaviour in Italy became eccentric. In February 1786 Horace Mann reported that not only had the son been allowed to run wild, but the father, who had 'resided here in a very obscure manner since 1782' was to marry an Italian 'singing-girl about 13 years old, the daughter of a sbirro'. She was Stella Chiappini, who found him a stout 'old grey-beard, from behind whose few and discoloured teeth came forth an offensive breath' and very poor Italian; but they were married in S.Maria Novella on 10 October, the infatuated Newborough describing his wife as 'the Marchesina of Modigliana, niece to the late General Chiappini'.
Their married life was predictably unsettled, and Newborough attracted the attention of John, Lord Hervey (who had succeeded Horace Mann as resident in 1788), with complaints against his wife's family. In July 1790 Elizabeth Gibbes attended a dinner at Lord Hervey's and described Lady Newborough as 'wilder than a colt'.2 Meanwhile her husband was corresponding (in October 1790) with the printer Bodoni in Parma over an Italian translation of Hurd's Dialogues on the use of Foreign Travel (and again in March 1792 from The Hague).3 Following allegations by his father-in-law, Newborough was arrested for debt, to be released at the end of 1791 when his agent, Samuel Price, came out from Wales to settle his accounts. 'Lord Newborough, after all the various difficulties which he had encountered in this country for this last six years past is at last gone from Florence', wrote Lord Hervey on 20 December 1791.
Newborough was in Holland in March 1792, his composure evidently recovered; Stella eventually gave him two sons, born in 1802 and 1803.4 In 1799 Lorenzo Chiappini, Lady Newborough's father, was in prison in Florence for alleged Jacobinism; William Wyndham, the British minister, was asked to take an interest in his case, but he advised that since Chiappini was 'a principal Constable or thief-taker, whose character has been marked by infamy and disloyalty', no action was required.5
1. Leghorn Inscr., 91. 2. Gibbes jnl.MSS (15 Jul. 1790). 3. Bodoni cart., cass.49. 4. See B. Dew-Roberts, Caern. Hist.Soc.Trans., 15[1954]:24 - 7. R. Payne-Gallwey, Mystery of Maria Stella, [1908]. Memoirs of Maria Stella (Lady Newborough) by herself, [1914]. 5. B. Moloney, English Misc., 19[1968]:291 - 2.