Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/295

  his understanding,’ and he constantly referred to his connection with the treaty of Utrecht. In a debate on the civil list in 1737 ‘Lord Strafford diverted the house with a true account of his situation, declaring he was bad with the last ministry, worse with this, and he did not doubt but he should be worse with the next, should he ever see another; therefore, as an unbiassed man, he gave his vote for the king’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 15th Rep. vi. 179).

Strafford was ill in 1736, and tried his constitution by sea-bathing and other things, contrary to his doctor's advice (Wentworth Papers, p. 527). His brother Peter died suddenly on 10 Jan. 1739 as he was playing at quadrille (Gent. Mag. ix. 47); he had for long given way to drink, and he left his affairs in great disorder; ‘'twas a mercy it pleased God to take him,’ wrote Lady Strafford (Wentworth Papers, pp. 533–4). Strafford died of the stone at Wentworth Castle on 15 Nov. 1739, and was buried on 2 Dec. at Toddington (Gent. Mag. ix. 605). His widow died on 19 Sept. 1754. He left one son, William (b. 1722), who became the fourth earl; and three daughters—Anne, Lucy, and Henrietta. In 1741 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu met the young earl in Rome, and wrote that he ‘behaves himself really very modestly and genteelly, and has lost the pertness he acquired in his mother's assemblies’ (Letters, ii. 86). Afterwards he was an intimate friend of Horace Walpole. He married Lady Anne Campbell, but died without issue in 1791.

Strafford's portrait was painted by Kneller in 1714, and an engraving by Vertue is reproduced in the ‘Wentworth Papers.’ By her will Lady Strafford left to her son ‘my late lord's picture (drawn by Lens) set with diamonds’ (Add. Charters, 13647). A very large collection of Lord Strafford's correspondence is in the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 22192–22267, 31128–52, besides single letters in other volumes). Family correspondence will be found in Additional MSS. 22225–9, 31143–5, and private letters in Additional MSS. 31141–31142. Papers about the peace negotiations are in Additional MSS. 22205–7, 31136–8; general correspondence in Additional MS. 31140; papers respecting income, property, funeral expenses, &c., in Additional MS. 22230; papers about post fines in Additional MS. 22255; papers about the impeachment in Additional MS. 22218; and letters from agents in Additional MSS. 22192, 22232–4, 22237–8. An interesting selection from these papers, consisting chiefly of letters to Lord Strafford from his mother, brother, wife, and children, was published by Mr. J. J. Cartwright in 1883. Other letters of Lord Strafford are among the manuscripts of the Dukes of Ormonde and Marlborough respectively.



WENTWORTH, WILLIAM CHARLES (1793–1872), ‘the Australian patriot,’ chief founder of the system of colonial self-government, born on 26 Oct. 1793, at Norfolk Island (then a penal dependency of New South Wales), was the son of D'Arcy Wentworth, government surgeon on the island, by his wife, Catherine Parry, who died at Paramatta in 1800. He claimed descent from the great Earl of Strafford (The Australian, 11 July 1827), but in Burke's ‘Colonial Gentry’ his ancestry is traced to D'Arcy Wentworth of Athlone, co. Roscommon (b. 1640), son of Michael Wentworth of York, a scion of the great Yorkshire family.

His father, D'Arcy Wentworth (1762–1827), born at Portadown, co. Armagh, in 1762, was an impoverished Irish country gentleman. ‘At an early age he held a commission as lieutenant of one of the regiments which were raised for the local service of Ireland near the conclusion of the American war’ (ib.) Arriving in New South Wales in 1790, after filling various posts in the imperial service in connection with the medical department, he was appointed, through Lord Wentworth Fitzwilliam's influence with Lord Liverpool, principal surgeon of New South Wales under Governor [q. v.] Under Macquarie he also became superintendent of police in the town of Sydney, magistrate of the territory, and treasurer of the colonial revenue. He had been one of the most prominent abettors in the arrest and deposition of Governor [q. v.] (20 Jan. 1808), who had suspended and court-martialled him, but Bligh's successor, Macquarie, loaded him with honours and emoluments outside of his various professional offices, making him director of the bank of New South Wales, and granting him with two others a ‘spirit monopoly’ for building the general hospital (hence popularly known as the ‘rum hospital’). He died in 1827 (, History of Australia, p. 47).

When seven years of age, William Charles Wentworth was sent to England to be