Thrale history

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aged by his canny father to mix with the 'Boy Patriots' - the Cobhams, Grenvilles, Lyttletons, and Pitts - and all such contacts meant participating in the Grand Tours abroad, regular visits to the great Houses, and regular coffee house assemblies and so forth. Boswell reports that Henry's allowance was a splendid one of £1,000 a year of more. Henry's sisters were also well provided with dowries and made very notable marriages. One Frances, married Samuel Plumbe, an alderman of London. She was born in 1726 at Lower Tooting and died in 1811. Great family furore was caused when their daughter Fanny eloped with John Rice and married him. Hester Lynch Thrale, Henry Thrale, and Dr. Johnson all wrote screeds on the subject of 'Fanny's right of choice' and so in the end overcame the hostility of Frances and Alderman Plumbe to the marriage.¹⁶ Another of Henry Thrale's sisters Mary, married Sir John Lade, M.P. for Camelford. Thus one finds the entry for 1802 in the Gentleman's Magazine: 'In St. Michaels, St. Albans, aged about 69, Mary, Lady Dowager Lade, daughter of Ralph and brother of Henry Thrale Esq., formerly Member for the borough for Southwark and widow of Sir John Lade of Warbleton in Sussex, who died April 21st 1759 of a mortification arising from an amputation of his leg which had been broken by a fall from a horse, leaving her with child of a son who was born a Baronet August 1st following and now succeeds to the whole of his mother's property - she having died intestate, which is said to consist of estates to the value of nearly £1,200 per annum and about £50,000 in the stocks. She was buried at Warbleton with her husband'. The last of Henry Thrale's sister Susannah made two marriages, the first to Arnold Nesbitt M.P. for Cricklade, and after his death in 1799 to Thomas Scott, M.P. for Bridport.

Henry Thrale succeeded his father at the age of thirty. He inherited the Anchor Brewery, Deadman's Place, and the Streatham villa, all to be described. Although he applied himself to business, he liked Ranelagh and the green rooms. With Arthur Murphy, the Irish writer actor, his friend, he once played a prank on the beautiful Gunnings upon their arrival in England. They were never forgiven by the Duchess of Hamilton: Lady Coventry decided to forget it. Yet such behaviour was usual by people of no little learning. Murphy was wit and scholar proven by his translation of Tacitus. Johnson's opinion was that Henry Thrale was a much superior scholar to Mrs. Thrale. Boswell described his manners as being that of a plain, independent English squire.

Henry Thrale's match with Hester Lynch Salusbury, Dr. Johnson's

Footnotes

16. Sale Sotheby's Lot 428 27 Oct. 1970.↩︎