Henry Swinburne
| Henry Swinburne | |
|---|---|
circa 1760 wax portrait
|
|
| Born |
8 July 1743 Bristol, England |
| Died | 1 April 1803 (aged 74) Trinidad, Trinidad and Tobago |
| Occupation | Travel Writer |
Henry Swinburne (1743–1803) was an English travel writer.
He was born at Bristol on 8 July 1743, into a Catholic family, and was educated at Scorton school, near Catterick, Yorkshire. He was then sent to the monastic seminary of Lacelle in France. He afterwards studied at Paris, Bordeaux, and in the Royal Academy at Turin, devoting special attention to literature and art. The death of his brother, who had devised to him a small estate at Hamsterley in Durham, placed him in independent circumstances. He proceeded to Turin, Genoa, and Florence.
He met in Paris his future wife Martha, daughter of John Baker of Chichester, solicitor to the Leeward Islands, who was being educated at a convent of Ursuline nuns. They were married at Aix-la-Chapelle on 24 March 1767. The couple then settled at Hamsterley, where the husband laid out the estate. They passed the autumn of 1774 and the following months until September 1775 at Bordeaux, and then visited the Pyrenees. Swinburne in the company of Sir Thomas Gascoigne travelled through Spain, returning to Bayonne in June 1776. A manuscript describing his journey was sent to Samuel Henley as editor. It was published in 1779 as Travels through Spain, 1775 and 1776, illustrated with drawings of Roman and Moorish architecture.
On his return to Bayonne in June 1776 Swinburne, with his family, travelled to Marseilles, and a supplementary volume describing the expedition was issued in 1787. They then sailed to Naples, and travelled in the Two Sicilies, where they stayed for 1777 and 1778, and for the early months of 1779. Their return to England was by Vienna, Frankfurt, and Brussels, and they arrived in London in July 1779, but after a few months in England passed once more through France to Italy (March to July 1780) and then until November in Vienna. They formed acquaintance with literati in each country, and received compliments from the Catholic sovereigns. At Vienna Maria Theresa conferred on Mrs. Swinburne the female order of La Croix Étoilée, and the Emperor Joseph II stood godfather to their son of that name. They were in Brussels from February to June 1781, and again crossed to England.
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