Felton Hervey was an aristocratic English politician from Bury Street Edmunds in Suffolk, and a member of the British royal household.
Background
Hervey was born in 1712, he was the tenth son (and seventeenth child) of John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol. His mother, Elizabeth Felton, was the daughter and heir of Sir Thomas Felton, 4th Baronet, who, like her husband, was also an Member of Parliament for the family seat of Bury Street Edmunds.
Education
He was educated at Bury Street Edmunds Grammar School and later expelled from Eton College.
Career
He was the second child to be called Felton, as an elder brother who had lived only a few weeks had been given that name. His elder brother"s brief life and death are recorded in a naive painting conserved in the Rotunda, Ickworth House, that is possibly by Joseph Brooke. Hervey was Queen Caroline"s equerry from 1736-1737, but he was dismissed for misconduct.
In 1754 Hervey stood for the House of Commons against the naval officer Augustus Hervey to whom he was related having quarrelled with Lord Bristol.
Hervey said that he was expecting a position by the then Whig Prime Minister Henry Pelham, but he eventually gave up hope despite Pelham"s reassurances. In 1756 Hervey resigned his position with the Duke of Cumberland citing the problems of travelling several times a year.
Hervey was successful in being appointed to the sinecure post of Remembrancer to the Exchequer. Hervey had married Dorothy, daughter of Solomon Ashley, of Westminster.
Hervey was portrayed among the virtuosi in the foreground of Johann Zoffany"s painting Tribuna of the Uffizi.
Hervey had an audience with the Pope in 1773 and died shortly after returning from Italy. He never saw the completed Zoffany painting, as it was not finished until 1777. Beside the Zoffany painting there is also a much younger and larger portrait by John Fayram in the Ickworth Rotunda. and the National Trust own a miniature of him by Christian Friedrich Zincke, which dates from about 1730.
In 1775 an auction was organised by Christie"s at his former home in Bury Street Edmunds of his considerable art collection.
Hervey"s son Lieutenant Felton Lionel Hervey, who had worked for the exchequer with him, was left the manor in Bury Street Edmunds.
Membership
11th Parliament of Great Britain. 10th Parliament of Great Britain]
He became one of the Members of Parliament (Member of Parliament) for Bury Street Edmunds in Surrey. Zoffany"s painting was not complete until after Hervey"s death but he is the figure in the foreground surrounded by the British Consul, the artist Thomas Patch and other members of the British set in Italy.