Sir Richard Colt Hoare, 2nd Baronet (1758-1838)

Sir Richard Colt Hoare - a painting at Stourhead (2014)

Profile

Sir Richard Colt Hoare (9 December 1758 – 19 May 1838) was an antiquarian and historian and the owner of the Stourhead estate in Wiltshire.

 

You can read more about Stourhead here.

Family background

Richard Colt Hoare was born in Barnes, Surrey, on 9 December 1758, the eldest son of Sir Richard Hoare, 1st Baronet, who had married his first cousin, Anne Hoare, the younger daughter of Henry Hoare of Stourhead, senior partner of Hoare’s Bank. Richard’s mother died when he was six months old and his father remarried. He had six children by his second wife, Frances Acland, and Richard grew up with his half-siblings in Surrey.

Hoare's Bank

Richard pursued his classical studies with a tutor whilst training for a role in the family business, Hoare’s Bank. His grandfather, known as ‘Henry the Magnificent’, gave him a house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and an allowance of £2,000 a year when he came of age.

Marriage

On 18 August 1783, Richard married Hester Lyttelton, daughter of William Lyttelton of Hagley, 1st Baron Lyttelton. They had one son, Henry, on 17 September 1784, but tragically, Hester died the following year, on 22 August 1785.

Grand Tour

Shortly after the death of his wife, Richard inherited Stourhead from his grandfather, Henry Hoare, on the condition that he left the bank. Henry made this stipulation to ensure the survival of the Stourhead estate in the event that the bank should fail in the future.

 

Stourhead

Deprived of both wife and career, Richard went on a Grand Tour, and for the next six years, he travelled extensively abroad, keeping detailed diaries. These were later published in Recollections abroad: journals of tours on the continent, 1785-1791 (1815-18). He subsequently toured throughout Britain and Ireland, recording his travels with the same meticulous detail.

Antiquarian

 

Richard was very interested in the history and archaeology of Wiltshire and amassed a huge collection of books and drawings. He was the author of The Ancient History of South Wiltshire (1812, 1819) and wrote the majority of The History of Modern Wiltshire (1822-44).

He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and admitted to the Society of Dilettanti in 1792. In 1825, he gave his collection of Italian topographical and historical works to the British Museum.

Sportsman

 

Richard was a keen sportsman and bought a fishing lodge in Bala in Gwynedd, Wales, in 1796. He also had a house in St James’s Square, London.

Stourhead

The Temple of Apollo in the gardens at Stourhead (2014)

Richard developed the gardens at Stourhead, planting trees and collecting exotic plants, leading to his election as a member of the Linnean Society in 1812.

Finding that the house at Stourhead did not have enough room for his collections, in 1800 he added two wings, one for the Library to house his books and the other the Picture Gallery to display his paintings.1

Richard Colt Hoare in his Library at Stourhead (Photo 2014)

Patron of the arts

Chippendale chairs in the Picture Room, Stourhead (2014)

Between 1798 and 1820, Richard employed Thomas Chippendale the Younger to make furnishings for Stourhead to the value of around £3,500. Chippendale’s work included furniture for Richard’s two new rooms, some pieces in the Egyptian style and others in an advanced Grecian taste.

Sarcophagus planter by Chippendale in the Picture Room, Stourhead (2014)

Richard commissioned works from the water-colourist Francis Nicholson, the portrait artist Samuel Woodforde and JMW Turner.

An unsatisfactory son

The relationship between Richard and his son Henry was very strained. Henry was devoted to a life of pleasure and his father was left to settle his debts. Henry died in 1836 leaving one daughter, Ann.

Illness and death

Richard suffered from gout and rheumatism and became increasingly deaf. He lived mainly at Stourhead with occasional visits to Bath. He died on 19 May 1838 at Stourhead and was buried at St Peter’s, Stourton. There is a marble statue to his memory in Salisbury Cathedral.

Salisbury Cathedral (2014)

Rachel Knowles writes faith-based Regency romance and historical non-fiction. She has been sharing her research on this blog since 2011. Rachel lives in the beautiful Georgian seaside town of Weymouth, Dorset, on the south coast of England, with her husband, Andrew.

Find out more about Rachel's books and sign up for her newsletter here.

If you have enjoyed this blog and want to encourage me and help me to keep making my research freely available, please buy me a virtual cup of coffee by clicking the button below.

 

Note
(1) These were the only rooms to escape the fire which devastated the house at Stourhead in 1902.

Sources used include:

Hutchings, Victoria, Hoare, Henry (1705-1785) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn May 2009; accessed 15 May 2014)

Hutchings, Victoria, Hoare, Sir Richard Colt (1758-1838) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn May 2009; accessed 15 May 2014)

Lomax, James, Chippendale, Thomas (bap 1718, d1779) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn May 2009, accessed 22 May 2014)

Blog update (May 2014)

Whilst researching a post on some paintings at Stourhead for my newsletter, I discovered that the painting which I had previously labelled as Hester Lyttelton, Sir Richard Colt Hoare's wife, was in fact of NOT of her at all! 

 

Someone had previously suggested that the painting was not of Hester, but as it was inscribed as such, I thought I was on safe ground. But no! According to the detailed description of this painting in the National Trust Collections, it was probably of Mrs John O'Neill (someone that I had never heard of before!)

Probably Mrs John O'Neill -
a painting at Stourhead (2014)

 

 

 

All photographs © Andrew Knowles - RegencyHistory.net

Charles Townley (1737-1805)

The Towneley Museum
  Print by William Henry Worthington after Johan Joseph Zoffany (1833)
Charles Townley is in the chair to the right.
  © Trustees of the British Museum

Profile

Charles Townley (1 October 1737 - 3 January 1805) was an antiquarian and collector and a trustee of the British Museum.

Early life

Charles Townley was born on 1 October 1737 at Towneley Hall near Burnley in Lancashire, the eldest child of William and Cecilia Towneley1. Because the family was Catholic, there were limited educational opportunities available for Townley in England, and so, in 1747, he and his brother Ralph were sent to be taught at the English College at Douai in northern France.

In 1753, Townley moved to Paris where he was tutored by the Reverend John Turberville Needham before being introduced into Paris society by his father’s uncle, the Chevalier John Towneley.

The country gentleman

In 1758, Townley came of age and took control of the lands that he had inherited from his father back in 1742. He was a good landlord, improving his estates, and enjoying the life of a country gentleman. He was also involved in the construction of the Leeds-Liverpool canal.

The Grand Tour

In 1767, Townley embarked upon the Grand Tour, visiting Naples, Paestum and Rome. Whilst in Rome, he began to collect antiquities, particularly marbles. Initially he made some bad purchases, but he learnt through his experience and became a more discerning collector, rejecting items which had been incorrectly restored.

He used Roman dealers such as Piranesi and the English dealer, Thomas Jenkins, for his purchases, which included Astragalizontes - two boys quarrelling over a game of knucklebones – which he bought from Jenkins for £400.

The Townley vase
 © Trustees of the British Museum

The Grand Tour again

In 1771, Townley visited Italy again – Rome, Naples and further afield into southern Italy and Sicily. Amongst the additions made to his collections on this visit was a marble bust thought to be of the nymph Clytie as well as a number of sculptures that he acquired through dealers such as Jenkins and Thomas Byres and also the painter and dealer, Gavin Hamilton.

After returning to London, Townley continued to build his collections through Jenkins and Hamilton, especially with sculptures from Hamilton’s excavations. These included the marble Townley vase and the Townley Venus, which was controversially exported in two parts by Hamilton in order to avoid papal enquiry.

Another visit to Italy

Townley spent another three months in Italy in 1777, mostly in Rome, buying from Hamilton, Jenkins and local dealers as before. After his return to London, Jenkins continued to send him antiquities, including a Roman marble copy of the bronze discus-thrower, Discobolus.

Discobolus
  © Trustees of the British Museum

The Townley Collection

Townley moved into 7 Park Street, a house that had been specially designed for him by Samuel Wyatt to display his collections, in 1778.2 Townley’s collection of marbles could rival any other in England and soon became a London visitor attraction. Townley welcomed visitors, either showing them round himself or, from about 1786, providing them with a catalogue of his collections.

The Townley Collection in the Dining Room at Park Street, Westminster
  A watercolour by W Chambers (c1794-5)
  © Trustees of the British Museum

In 1783, Johan Zoffany painted Townley in his Park Street library amongst an imaginary arrangement of some of his sculptures, together with three colleagues: Charles Greville, Thomas Astle and Pierre François Hugues, known as Baron d’Hancarville, who spent years sponging off Townley whilst he catalogued his marbles. A print of this painting appears at the top of this article.

The Gordon Riots

The 1780 Gordon Riots caused great panic amongst the Catholics in London. Fearing an attack on his house, Townley fled from Park Street. Some sources say that he took the Bust of Clytie to his carriage with him; others doubt whether this was physically possible for him to have done single-handedly.3

Recognition as an antiquarian

Townley was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a member of the Society of Dilettanti in 1786 and a fellow of the Royal Society in 1791.

He was elected a trustee of the British Museum in 1791 and was able to influence the design for the planned extension to the museum.

Despite the time that Townley devoted to study and his expertise in antiquities, his only printed work was a dissertation on a Roman helmet.

Personal life

Townley never married. Perhaps he was married to his collections. He was certainly a compulsive collector. According to a financial statement from 1779, he had spent about £11,600 on antiquities. The bust of Clytie was his favourite marble and Sir Henry Ellis recorded that “he used jocosely to call it his wife”.3

Marble bust of a woman, possibly Antonia,
  traditionally identified as the nymph Clytie
  © Trustees of the British Museum

When at his house in Park Street, he lived simply with few servants and no carriage; all available space was given over to housing his collections. But he was not parsimonious; he gave excellent Sunday dinners to his friends. He was also a talented artist and some of his sculptures are now known only from the drawings he made of them. Most of these drawings are now owned by the British Museum.

Townley’s legacy

Townley died on 3 January 1805 at his house in Park Street in London and was buried in the family vault in St Peter’s Church, Burnley, on 17 January.

He left his marbles in trust for his heir, providing that they build a gallery to display them, or otherwise, to the British Museum. In the end, all the marbles, with some terracottas and bronzes, were sold to the British Museum for £20,000. This became the core of the Graeco-Roman collection at the British Museum.

Rachel Knowles writes faith-based Regency romance and historical non-fiction. She has been sharing her research on this blog since 2011. Rachel lives in the beautiful Georgian seaside town of Weymouth, Dorset, on the south coast of England, with her husband, Andrew.

Find out more about Rachel's books and sign up for her newsletter here.

If you have enjoyed this blog and want to encourage us and help us to keep making our research freely available, please buy us a virtual cup of coffee by clicking the button below.

 

Notes
1. Although the family name was generally spelt Towneley, Charles Townley signed himself Townley, dropping the extra “e”.
2. This house is now 14 Queen Anne’s Gate.
3. From The Townley Gallery of Classic Sculpture in the British Museum by Sir Henry Ellis p9 (1846).

Sources used include:

Cook, BF, Townley, Charles (1737-1805), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 2004, online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 12 Jan 2013)
Ellis, Sir Henry, The Townley Gallery of Classic Sculpture in the British Museum (1846)

British Museum website