38 Facts About Horace Walpole

Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, better known as Horace Walpole, was an English Whig politician, writer, historian and antiquarian.

Horace Walpole had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, southwest London, reviving the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors.

Horace Walpole was born in London, the youngest son of British Prime Minister Sir Robert Horace Walpole and his wife, Catherine.

Horace Walpole was educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge.

At Cambridge, Horace Walpole came under the influence of Conyers Middleton, an unorthodox theologian.

Horace Walpole did not have any serious relationships with women; he has been called "a natural celibate".

Horace Walpole never married, engaging in a succession of unconsummated flirtations with unmarriageable women, and counted among his close friends a number of women such as Anne Seymour Damer and Mary Berry named by a number of sources as lesbian.

Horace Walpole decided to go travelling with Thomas Gray and wrote a will in which he left Gray all his belongings.

Horace Walpole went on the Grand Tour with Gray, but as Horace Walpole recalled in later life: "We had not got to Calais before Gray was dissatisfied, for I was a boy, and he, though infinitely more a man, was not enough to make allowances".

Horace Walpole wanted to attend fashionable parties and Gray wanted to visit antiquities.

In later life Horace Walpole admitted that the fault lay primarily with himself:.

Horace Walpole then visited Venice, Genoa, Antibes, Toulon, Marseille, Aix, Montpellier, Toulouse, Orleans and Paris.

Horace Walpole had long periods of absence from the college, often returning to Norwich to live at Houghton Hall, in Norfolk.

At the 1741 general election Horace Walpole was elected as a Member of Parliament for the rotten borough of Callington, Cornwall.

Horace Walpole held this seat for thirteen years although he never visited Callington.

Horace Walpole entered Parliament shortly before his father's fall from power.

Horace Walpole's philosophy mirrored that of Edmund Burke, who was his contemporary.

Horace Walpole was a classical liberal on issues such as slavery and the American Revolution.

Horace Walpole's lasting architectural creation is Strawberry Hill, the home he built from 1749 onward in Twickenham, southwest of London, which at the time overlooked the Thames.

Long-connected with the Blue Stockings Society, Horace Walpole played host to its members and associates at Strawberry Hill, including Anna Laetitia Barbauld in 1774.

The new Lord Horace Walpole, therefore, wrote to his cousin requesting that he stand for the seat, saying his friends "were all unanimously of opinion that you were the only person who from your near affinity to my grandfather, whose name is still in the greatest veneration, and your own known personal abilities and qualifications, could stand in the gap on this occasion and prevent opposition and expense and perhaps disgrace to the family".

In early 1757, Horace Walpole was out of Parliament after vacating Castle Rising until his election that year to King's Lynn, a seat he would hold until his retirement from the Commons in 1768.

Horace Walpole became a prominent opponent of the 1757 decision to execute Admiral John Byng.

Horace Walpole opposed the recent Catholic accommodative measures, writing to Mann in 1784: "You know I have ever been averse to toleration of an intolerant religion".

Horace Walpole wrote to the same correspondent in 1785 that "as there are continually allusions to parliamentary speeches and events, they are often obscure to me till I get them explained; and besides, I do not know several of the satirized heroes even by sight".

Horace Walpole wrote to William Mason, expounding his political philosophy:.

Horace Walpole was not impressed with Thomas Paine's reply to Burke, Rights of Man, writing that it was "so coarse, that you would think he means to degrade the language as much as the government".

Horace Walpole's father was created Earl of Orford in 1742.

Horace Walpole was buried in the same location as his father Sir Robert Walpole, at the Church of St Martin at Tours on the Houghton Hall estate.

Four of them were born in a sequence after the marriage; the fifth, Horace Walpole, was born eleven years later, at a time when she was known to be on bad terms with Sir Robert, and known to be on romantic terms with Carr, Lord Hervey.

Lord Hervey's Memoirs and Horace Walpole's Memoires are most remarkably alike, yet Walpole never saw them.

Horace Walpole had formed a number of lifelong friendships with a number of men and women notable for their looks, wit or social standing.

Horace Walpole entertained himself with others who were like himself, and who possessed notoriety and wit, such as such as Etheldreda Townshend, and George Selwyn with whom he jousted and derided with streams of invective.

The novelist Laetitia Matilda Hawkins, a younger contemporary of Horace Walpole, wrote of him as follows:.

From 1762 on, Horace Walpole published his Anecdotes of Painting in England, based on George Vertue's manuscript notes.

Smith, noting that Horace Walpole never did any work for his well-paid government sinecures, turns to the letters and argues that:.

However, Horace Walpole later changed his views following The Terror and declared that Richard could have committed the crimes of which he was accused.

The Horace Walpole Society was formed in 1911 to promote the study of the history of British art.