Sir Richard Worsley, 7th Baronet (13 February 1751 – 8 August 1805) was an English antiquary and politician.
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Worsley was born on 13 February 1751, Appuldurcombe, the son of Sir Thomas Worsley, 6th Baronet (1726–1768). Worsley succeeded his father as baronet on 23 September 1768. His mother was Elizabeth (1731–1800), daughter of John Boyle, 5th Earl of Cork and Henrietta, his first wife.
Educated at Winchester College, Richard spent about two years in Naples with his parents from 1765 to 1767 before matriculating at Corpus Christi College, Oxford on 9 April 1768. Instead of taking a degree, he decided to complete his education with a Grand Tour around from 1769 to 1770, being tutored by D'Eyverdun, a friend of Edward Gibbon. On his return he entered the House of Commons for the constituency of Newport in 1774, supporting the Lord North government and being appointed one of the clerks comptrollers of the board of green cloth in 1777 then comptroller of the king's household (1779–82), privy councillor (from 1780) and governor of the Isle of Wight (1780–82). On 20 September 1775 he married Seymour Dorothy Fleming, the younger daughter and coheir of Sir John Fleming, 1st Baronet, of Brompton Park, Middlesex, and his wife, Lady (Jane) Fleming (d. 1811). They had one legitimate son, Robert Edwin (1776-1795) and a daughter, and she brought over £70,000 to the marriage, but the marriage soon became unhappy. He was elected both FSA and FRS in 1778.
He failed to win a seat at the Hampshire by-election of December 1779 and lost all his offices when the North administration fell in 1782, with other damage being done to his political career by scandals involving his wife. She was rumoured to have 27 lovers and in 1782 Richard brought a criminal conversation case for £20,000 against one of them, a Hampshire militia officer George M Bissett who lived near to them. However, the jury decided Richard had connived in the adultery and awarded him only 1 shilling in damages. Richard left for Spain, Portugal, and France (1783–84, quitting his parliamentary seat after his departure) and then wintered in Rome before leaving there in February 1785 for the Levant with Willey Reveley as draughtsman. He visited Athens (from 1785), the Greek interior, Rhodes, Cairo, Constantinople, Sigeion (1786), Troy (1786) and the Crimea. During his travels he built up a collection of gems, reliefs, paintings, sculpture and reliefs, losing the paintings when the collection was interned in Portugal during his return trip from the east to England via Rome in 1787-88. Back in England, Worsley arranged the collection around his house at Appuldurcombe, where he had the grounds landscaped by Capability Brown. Also in 1788 he and his estranged wife entered into articles of separation (after the separation she reverted to her birth name) and Richard began an affair with a Mrs Sarah Smith which lasted until his death.
He re-entered Parliament as MP for Newtown from 1790 to 1793 and then became British ambassador to the Republic of Venice from 1794 to Venice's annexation by France in 1797. In the latter post he continued collecting (the French Revolutionary Wars keeping prices low for antiquities at the time) and worked hard to keep France's ambassador from taking advantage of Venice staying neutral. He managed to escape Venice when it was invaded by the French, transferring soon after his departure from a civilian convoy to a 14 gun Royal Navy sloop, leaving his art collections from Venice on the convoy with instructions to stay at Fiume to await a more peaceful situation in which to continue to England.
He landed back in England in mid-September 1797 and received a £600 annuity from the crown for his services. Having been re-elected in absentia for Newtown in 1796, he held that seat from then until Pitt the Younger resigned in February 1801. From then on he went into seclusion, principally at Sea Cottage (later known as Marine Villa), built by him in the early 1790s near St Lawrence, in the Undercliff of the Isle of Wight, adding small classical temples in its grounds and making a failed attempt to add a vineyard. In 1801 he received news from a British government agent that a French privateer had brought the ship carrying his art treasures into Malaga and that the paintings onboard had been bought up cheaply by Lucien Bonaparte. All that was left were the antiquities, which he managed to reacquire by paying the French bounty on them.
He was unable to defend the Isle against the Napoleonic invasion threat due to ill health but carried on collecting until his death of apoplexy, being buried at the parish church at Godshill and succeeded by his fourth cousin, Henry Worsley-Holmes. On Richard's death his wife's £70,000 jointure reverted to her and just over a month later, on 12 September, she re-married to John Lewis Cuchet at Farnham. Worsley died on 8 August 1805, in Appuldurcombe. He left the estate saddled with heavy debts, with Appuldurcombe passing to his niece, Henrietta Anna Maria Charlotte, daughter of the Hon. John Bridgeman Simpson (she married the Hon. Charles Anderson-Pelham, later first earl of Yarborough in 1806).
| Parliament of Great Britain | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Hon John St John Hans Sloane |
Member of Parliament for Newport 1774–1784 With: Hans Sloane 1774–1780 Hon John St John 1780–1784 |
Succeeded by Edward Rushworth Hon. Hugh Seymour-Conway |
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by George Canning John Barrington |
Member of Parliament for Newtown 1796–1801 With: Charles Shaw Lefevre |
Succeeded by Sir Edward Law Charles Shaw Lefevre |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by The Earl of Onslow |
Comptroller of the Household 1779–1782 |
Succeeded by The Earl Ludlow |
| Diplomatic posts | ||
| Preceded by Francis Drake |
British Minister Resident to the Republic of Venice 1793–1797 |
Succeeded by Abolished |
| Honorary titles | ||
| Preceded by Hans Stanley |
Governor of the Isle of Wight 1780–1782 |
Succeeded by The Duke of Bolton |
| Vice-Admiral of the Isle of Wight 1780–1791 |
Succeeded by Thomas Orde |
|
| Baronetage of England | ||
| Preceded by Thomas Worsley |
Baronet (of Appuldurcombe) 1768–1805 |
Succeeded by Henry Worsley-Holmes |