Topham Beauclerk

Topham Beauclerk (pronounced bo-CLAIR; 22 December 1739 – 11 March 1780) was a celebrated wit and a friend of Dr Johnson and Horace Walpole.

Topham Beauclerk was born on 22 December 1739, the only son of Lord Sidney Beauclerk and a great-grandson of King Charles II. He was christened on 19 January 1740 in St James', Westminster. He attended Oxford University (Trinity College).

In 1763 he was in Italy with John Fitzpatrick. In 1774 he lived in Muswell Hill, north London.

On 12 March 1768 he married Diana, the daughter of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough and they had four children together:

Topham Beauclerk entertained Dr Johnson at his home in Old Windsor for a number of weeks. He appears several times in Boswell's Life of Johnson. As Bennet Langton records: 'His affection for Topham Beauclerk was so great, that when Beauclerk was labouring under that severe illness which at last occasioned his death, Johnson said (with a voice faultering with emotion), "Sir, I would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save Beauclerk".' (Boswell 1672).

He was an intimate friend also of Horace Walpole, Lord Orford. The artist Joseph Farington in his famous diary records Walpole's description of him:

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