(c.1724 - 60) of Mold, Flint., and Longwood Ho., Hants, o. s. of Anthony Swymmer of Jamaica; educ. Winchester and Peterhouse Camb. 1741; MP 1747 - 60; m. 1748 Arabella Astley (d. 1785).
1753 [Marseilles, Nov. 1752] Rome (by 16 Jan. - Apr. 1753), Florence (May)
In 1752, with his wife and father-in-law, Sir John Astley, Swymmer went to Paris to meet the Young Pretender and discuss plans for the Elibank Plot (involving Prussian help for a restoration of the Stuarts). He went on to Rome with his wife, commended to Lumisden the Pretender's secretary, and had arrived by 16 January 1753.1
Lumisden became rather taken by Mrs Swymmer, escorting her regularly during the Carnival and saying that she had 'all the qualities we admired in the fair sex'.2 Their cicerone was probably James Russel, who recorded their departure in April and said they had been very generous to him;3 he had dedicated a plate to Swymmer in his Letters [1750]. Swymmer patronised Mengs, then at the start of his Roman career, commissioning two pastels (now lost) and he and his wife were apparently Mengs's first English sitters; Mrs Swymmer's beautiful portrait with a Carnival mask in her hand is at Dalmeny, but her husband's is now lost; there was some robust bargaining concerning the price.4 Early in May 1753 the Swymmers had been in Florence, Horace Mann listing 'Mr and Mrs Swimmer, who was a beauty, they say'.5 In September [presumably 1753] Mr Russell [doubtless James Russel] was sending Swymmer 'all your things except the portraits by Myngs and landskips by Wilson [doubtless Richard Wilson], & these are now just sent to Leghorn'.6
1. Wicklow MSS (J. Russel, 16 Jan. 1753). Commons 1, 2:459. 2. Dennistoun, 1:153 (6 Mar. 1753). 3. Add.41169, f.68v (J. Russel, 31 Jul. 1753). 4. Mengs 1993, 18, 21, 76. 5. Wal.Corr., 20:376. 6. Lumisden to Swymmer, Sep.[1753?]; note by B.Skinner.