Francis Hare-Naylor

Francis Hare-Naylor (1753–1815) was an English historical author.

He was the eldest son of Robert Hare-Naylor of Hurstmonceaux in Sussex, canon of Winchester (son of Francis Hare), by his first wife, Sarah, daughter of Lister Selman of Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire. His mother died when he was a child, and his father then married Henrietta Henckell. She persuaded her husband into demolitions of Hurstmonceaux Castle, for the construction of a house to be settled on her own children.

Francis Hare-Naylor had a legacy from his mother, and lived almost entirely in London. There he formed a friendship with Charles James Fox, and became one of the circle around Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire at Chiswick. She introduced him to her cousin Georgiana Shipley, fourth daughter of Jonathan Shipley, who had learned painting in Joshua Reynolds's studio. Her eldest sister Anna Maria was the wife of Sir William Jones.

Bishop Shipley invited Hare-Naylor to Twyford, but the following day he was arrested for debt while driving in the episcopal coach with Georgiana and her parents. He was then forbidden the house. The Duchess of Devonshire gave the pair an annuity of £200 a year, and on this they married. They went to Karlsruhe, and then to the north of Italy. Georgiana Hare-Naylor devoted herself to painting, the family eventually settling at Bologna; Georgiana formed a friendship with Clotilda Tambroni, professor of Greek there.

In 1797 Hare's father died, and it was found that his second wife had built her new house of Hurstmonceaux Place on entailed land. The Hare-Naylors set off for England, leaving three of their children in the care of Clotilda Tambroni and Father Emmanuele Aponte, a Spanish priest, and appointing Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti tutor of their precocious eldest son.

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