Man of letters – but few friends Strange tale of a notorious blue blood and travel writer of the Georgian era
THE history of British aristocracy is pitted with blue bloods who were quite bonkers. But in terms of eccentricity and daredevil adventure, few swathed in this country’s elite class system can hold a candle to Captain Philip Thicknesse, born at Balterley Hall in Staffordshire.
Born with wanderlust, Thicknesse survived scrapes and controversy during his troubled times in the colonies. And his blunt, no-nonsense, personality earned him plenty of enemies back home.
One social observer of the day described Thicknesse as “having an inordinate capacity for making enemies”. Another described him as “a gentleman, scoundrel and professional tourist”.
As well as his adventures in Jamaica and America, Thicknesse was a tireless man of letters who has been dubbed the very first travel writer. He had a long friendship with artist Thomas Gainsborough, but the pair fell out over an unfinished portrait. The rift never healed.
Born in 1719, the seventh son of a rector, he was at best curmudgeonly. His ill-temper and inability to get on with people extended to his own family. He took his rift with his son to the grave, declaring in his will: “I leave my right hand, to be cut off after my death, to my son Lord Audley.”
Thicknesse, married three times, was no fan of unhurried, domestic bliss. That’s hardly surprising when you consider:
In the new colony of Georgia, he swapped two buffalo skins, a mirror and a comb for a Red Indian girl to “warm his bed”. He made money in Jamaica by pursuing escaped slaves. The going rate was £70 per pair of ears. He spent his last years as an “ornamental hermit”, living in a purpose-built grotto in the grounds of his sprawling home. Thicknesse was expelled from Westminster School for truancy at the age of 14 and still in his teens emigrated to America, arriving in the new country in late August 1736. Once in Georgia, the adventurer went native, building a log cabin on a Savannah River island and dining on whatever he could shoot or trap. He returned to England in 1737 but soon sailed for Jamaica, where he gained a commission as captain in an independent company. He had just one job in the organisation and that was as a bounty hunter, tasked with hunting down escaped slaves. Thicknesse believed in slavery, or rather he believed his country would be in grave peril without it. Denouncing the calls to abolish slavery, he stated: “If a gentleman emancipated his whole plantation of slaves today and desired their labour for hire tomorrow to cut down his canes, do you believe they would serve him? Not one of them would.” Thicknesse’s private life was tangled. In 1742 he eloped with wealthy heiress Maria Lanove after abducting her from a Southampton street. They set up home in Bath, but tragedy struck in 1749 when Maria and their three children contracted diphtheria. Only daughter Anna survived and when Maria’s parents died, Thicknesse left no stone unturned in the quest to inherit their fortune. On May 10, 1749, he married Lady E l izabe th Tu ch e t , daughter of the 6th Earl of Castlehaven. It was a lucrative match for Thicknesse, who used a large slice of the dowry to buy the lieutenant governorship of Landguard Fort in Suffolk.
The couple had one son, George, bequeathed his father’s right hand in the will.
Elizabeth died in childbirth in 1762 and Thicknesse wasn’t long in mourning. He married talented musician and singer Anne Ford in the same year and they had one son, who went on to be Royal Navy captain John Thicknesse, and a daughter, Charlotte.
In all, the ne’er-do-well had six surviving children from his marriages. Again, Thicknesse’s lack of affection for his offspring came to the fore. Charlotte suffered smallpox, but survived. Her reward for staving off the deadly disease was to be thrown in a convent by her father who considered her looks ruined and marriage prospects non-existent.
The couple and two children embarked on a European tour in 1766. It was a bizarre touring break, with the family taking with them a pet monkey called Jocko, a parakeet and spaniel. The strange group created a stir in Spain and historians believe Thicknesse provided the template for the continental mindset of eccentric English gentry.
The break did provide Thicknesse with his greatest literary success, however. Notes gathered during the trip were published under the title A Year’s Journey Through France and Part of Spain and proved a best-seller.
It was the more readable of the author’s volumes, some of which bordered on the downright weird.
His guide to healthy living recommended inhaling the “breath of young women”.
He also produced a three-volume rant about his despised son, entitled Memoirs and anecdotes of Philip Thicknesse, late governor of Landguard Fort and unfortunately father to George Tuchet, Baron Audley.