Sir Bourchier Wrey, 6th Baronet

Who was Sir Bourchier Wrey, 6th Baronet?

Sir Bourchier Wrey, 6th Baronet was a British politician.

A native of North Devon, he was the son of Sir Bourchier Wrey, 5th Baronet and his wife Diana, daughter of John Rolle of Stevenstone. He was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford and succeeded his father, as 6th baronet on 12 November 1726.

He made his Grand Tour in 1737-40, visiting Paris, Geneva, Rome, Florence and Milan. While living in Rome, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu recorded him sleeping with his landlady with the encouragement of his landlord. In 1742, he was elected to the Society of Dilettanti, a group of gentlemen who wanted to maintain an interest in the antiquarian and artistic pursuits which they had enjoyed abroad. George Knapton, the official portraitist of the society, painted his portrait in 1744, in which he is depicted holding a punch bowl inscribed with a line from Horace's Odes: "dulce est desipere in loco".

He was elected Member of Parliament for Barnstaple in 1747 and went to Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck in 1752 as a delegate for the 'Society for Carrying on the Herring Fishery'. He rebuilt the pier at Ilfracombe and established better arrangements for English fishermen in Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck and Copenhagen.