(1708 - 59) of Coldbrook, Mon., writer and diplomat, 4th s. of John Hanbury; educ. Eton; suc. god-fa. 1729 taking name of Williams; m. 1732 Ldy. Frances Coningsby, dau. of 1st E. Coningsby; Dilettanti 1736; KB 1744; MP 1735 - 47, 1754 - 9; env. Dresden 1747 - 9, 1751 - 5, Berlin 1750 - 1, amb. St Petersburg 1755 - 7.
1729 - 30 Florence (by 25 Nov. 1729), Rome (by 8 Dec. 1729 - 16 May 1730), Bologna, Genoa (by 23 Nov.)
On 25 November 1729 Williams was in Florence with Benjamin Bathurst.1 By 8 December he had arrived in Rome with Bathurst and Henry Legge, with whom he was said to be travelling.2 Stosch described Williams in Rome as a spirited youth; 'his natural vivacity, his too great zeal for the King and his lack of discretion in actions and conversation involved him in a thousand scrapes from which I fortunately rescued him.'3 In January the Pretender had been shocked to see that Williams and Bathurst had their box at the theatre decorated in exactly the same style as his own.4 Williams left Rome on 16 May 1730 for Bologna,3 and he was writing to Francis Colman from Genoa on 23 November recommending William Hoare as a portrait painter.5
1. SP 98/31 (Colman, 25 Nov. 1729). 2. SP 85/16, f.610 (Walton, 8 Dec. 1729). See Ilchester, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, 38. 3. SP 98/32, f.66 (Walton, 18 May 1730). 4. Ibid., f.16 (5 Jan. 1730). 5. R.B. Peake, Memoirs of the Colman Family, 1:20.