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Sir Bourchier Wrey, 6th Baronet


Sir Bourchier Wrey, 6th Baronet (ca. 1715 – 13 April 1784) of , Devon, was a Member of Parliament for Barnstaple, Devon, in 1747–1754. The , about two miles south of Barnstaple, had been since the time of Henry de Tracy (died 1274) the residence of the feudal barons of Barnstaple, ancestors of the Wrey family.

He was the eldest son and heir of Sir Bourchier Wrey, 5th Baronet (c. 1683 – 1726), lord of the , a Jacobite sympathiser, by his wife (who had married him as her second husband) and first cousin Diana Rolle (born 1683), a daughter of John Rolle (died 1689), eldest son and heir of Sir John Rolle (1626–1706) of Stevenstone, near Great Torrington, Devon, Sheriff of Devon in 1682 and one of the largest landowners in Devon.

He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford and succeeded his father as 6th baronet on 12 November 1726.

He made his Grand Tour in 1737-40 during which he visited Paris, Geneva, Rome, Florence and Milan. While living in Rome, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu recorded him as having slept with his landlady, with the encouragement of his landlord. In 1742 he was elected to the Society of Dilettanti, a group of gentlemen who wanted to maintain an interest in the antiquarian and artistic pursuits which they had enjoyed abroad. George Knapton (1698–1778), the official portraitist of the society, painted his portrait in 1744, in which he is depicted on board a ship holding a punch bowl inscribed with a line from Horace's Odes: "dulce est desipere in loco" (it is sweet on occasion to play the fool).


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