Sir Bourchier Wrey, 6th Baronet

Sir Bourchier Wrey, 6th Baronet (c. 1715 - 13 April, 1784) was a British politician.

Of Tawstock Court, North Devon, Wrey was the son of Sir Bourchier Wrey, 5th Baronet and his wife Diana, daughter of John Rolle of Stevenstone. He was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, and succeeded his father (a Jacobite sympathiser), as 6th baronet 12 November 1726.

He made his Grand Tour in 1737-40, visiting Paris, Geneva, Rome, Florence and Milan. While living in Rome, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu recorded him sleeping 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 holding a punch bowl inscribed with a line from the Odes: "dulce est desipere in loco" "(it is sweet on occasion to play the fool)".

He was elected Member of Parliament for Barnstaple in 1747 and went to Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck in 1752 as a delegate for the 'Society for Carrying on the Herring Fishery'. He rebuilt the pier at Ilfracombe and established better arrangements for English fishermen in Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck and Copenhagen.

Family

Wrey married firstly in 1749, Mary, daughter of John Edwards of Highgate, who died without issue in 1751 and was the subject of a long Latin epitaph in The Gentleman's Magazine of that year.

He married secondly in 1755, Ellen, daughter and heiress of John Thresher of Bradford on Avon. There were two sons and four daughters from this marriage including Florentina, who married Richard Godolphin Long. Wrey died 13 April 1784 and was buried in Tawstock church where there is a pyramidal monument to him and his two wives. His second wife Ellen died at her house in The Circus (Bath), 3 December, 1813.

He was succeeded by his eldest son Sir Bourchier Wrey, 7th Baronet.

See also

Wrey Baronets

References

* [http://www.angeltowns.com/town/peerage/ Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page]