Henry Swinburne

Henry Swinburne (1743–1803) was an English travel writer.

Early life and marriage He was born at Bristol on 8 July 1743, into a Catholic recusant family: he was the fourth son of Sir John Swinburne, 3rd Baronet of Capheaton, Northumberland, who married on 20 July 1721 Mary, only daughter of Edward Bedingfeld, and granddaughter of Sir Henry Bedingfeld of Oxburgh, Norfolk. His father died in January 1745, and his mother died at York on 7 February 1761. He was educated at Scorton school, near Catterick, Yorkshire. He was then sent to the monastic seminary of La Celle in France. He afterwards studied at Paris, Bordeaux, and in the Royal Academy at Turin, devoting special attention to literature and art. The death of his brother, who had devised to him a small estate at Hamsterley in Durham, placed him in independent circumstances. He proceeded to Turin, Genoa, and Florence.

Swinburne met in Paris his future wife Martha, daughter of John Baker (1712–1779) of Chichester, solicitor to the Leeward Islands, who was being educated at a convent of Ursuline nuns. They were married at Aix-la-Chapelle on 24 March 1767. The couple then settled at Hamsterley, where the husband laid out the estate.

Travellers They passed the autumn of 1774 and the following months until September 1775 at Bordeaux, and then visited the Pyrenees. A manuscript describing his journey was sent to Samuel Henley as editor. It was published in 1779 as Travels through Spain, 1775 and 1776, illustrated with drawings of Roman and Moorish architecture. Henry's wife Martha worked over the manuscripts. They were reprinted in 1895.

The second daughter, Mary Frances (1771–1828), married on 7 September 1793 Paul Benfield; Swinburne was involved in Benfield's financial collapse. The couple eloped in 1812. Maria Antonia (died 1869), married in 1811, as his second wife, Major-General Oliver Robert Jones of the 18th Hussars. Harriet (i.e. Maria Theresa Henrietta), married in 1814 John Walker, brother of Richard Walker who had married her sister Carolina. In 1818 he bought Purbrook Park, Hampshire from George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith. Their children included Frederick Walker (1820–1866) who emigrated to Australia. She died in 1861 at Cagebrook House, Herefordshire.

Martha (1769–1778), the eldest daughter, died young. Philip Chesney Yorke (1865–1943) who edited the letters was the son of Reginald Yorke, who had married Harriet, daughter of Harriet and John Walker, and great-nephew of Louisa Swinburne.

The eldest son Henry died an infant in 1769. The second son, also Henry, born 1772, was enrolled among the French royal pages, and placed under the care of the Prince of Lambesc. He died in a storm on HMS Babet, on his way to Jamaica in 1800. The third son Thomas Swinburne (1777–1806) was a naval officer lost in the wreck of HMS Athenienne; Joseph Antony , the fourth son, died without issue in 1812.