(1736 - 1800), s. of Rev. Ferdinando Warner, of Barnes, Surr.; Trin. Camb. 1754; DD 1773; rect. of Hockliffe and Chalgrave, Beds, 1771, and Stourton, Wilts, 1790 - d.; chapl. to the British emb. at Paris 1790 - 3; interned in Paris, released 1795.
1778 Venice (13 - 17 Aug.)
1785 - 6 Naples ( - 17 Feb. 1786), Rome (by 23 Feb.)
The witty and scholarly Dr Warner was at least twice in Italy. On 13 August 1778 he arrived in Venice ('Gugliemo Worner' with 'Giovanni Didem')1 on confidential business associated with his friend George Selwyn's claim to be the father of the marchesa Fagnani's daughter (see Selwyn); he was in Paris by November.2
He returned to Italy eight years later. In February 1786 Richard Colt Hoare (who later presented him with the living of Stourton) travelled with him from Naples to Rome; Hoare described how at the village of San Felice Circeo (near Naples), while he was making a sketch, Warner borrowed a book from a priest and read aloud a history of the town to a crowd of villagers who 'appeared to regard him as a being of a superior order come to enlighten them'.3 Henry Quin saw Warner and Hoare in Rome sometime before 1 April 1786.4
1. ASV is 760. 2. Jesse, Selwyn, 3:306 - 7. Bell, Banks, 134. 3. R.C. Hoare, Recollections 1785 - 7, 62, 67 - 8. 4. Quin jnl.MSS.