John Finch (Ambassador)

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Sir John Finch (1626 - 1682) was ambassador of England to the Ottoman Empire.

One of the Finches of Burley-on-the-Hill John Finch was younger brother of Lord Chancellor Sir Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham, their half-sister meanwhile was the philosopher Lady Anne Conway of Ragley Hall. Anne and John Finch were pupils of Henry More, and studying with More at Christ's College, Cambridge John Finch met his lifelong companion Sir Thomas Baines. Following a Grand Tour of Italy, where they graduated in medicine from the University of Padua in 1656 Finch and Baines returned to Christ's as teachers in 1660, and fellows of the Royal Society. They returned to Italy again from 1665- 1670 when Finch was Minister to the Ducal Court. He was appointed amabassador to the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople in 1672, succeeding his uncle Heneage Finch, 3rd Earl of Winchilsea and his cousin Daniel Harvey. John Finch served as ambassador until 1681.

Finch was not a strong ambassador and was constantly outwitted by the Grand Viziers Ahmet Köprülü and Kara Mustafa ^[1]

Finch died of pleurisy in Florence, Italy in 1682, is buried in St Giles Church, London and commemeorated with Baines, who had died in Constantinople, with an elaborate monument in the chapel of Christ's College. ^[2] Their portraits by Florentine artist Carlo Dolci ^[3] hang in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Other British residents during Finch's tenure included the reverend John Covel, merchant Sir Dudley North, Finch's consul in Smyrna, Paul Rycaut and their letters and memoirs contribute to our picture of Finch's reign.

Finch and Baines are further remembered in the poem Baines His Dissection by Scottish poet, David Kinloch ^[4].

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