HERVEY, GEORGE WILLIAM, second Earl of Bristol (1721–1775), born on 31 Aug. 1721, was the eldest son of John, lord Hervey of Ickworth (1696-1743) [q. v.], by Mary [see Hervey, Mary, Lady], daughter of Brigadier-general Nicholas Lepell. He became ensign in the 38th, or ‘Duke of Marlborough’s,’ regiment of foot on 2 June 1739, ensign in the 1st regiment of foot-guards on 11 May 1740, and captain in the 48th, or ‘Cholmondeley’s,’ regiment of foot on 27 Jan. 1741, but resigned his commission in August 1742. On 5 Aug. 1743 he succeeded his father as third Lord Hervey of Ickworth, and on the following 1 Dec. took his seat in the House of Lords. He became second Earl of Bristol on the death of his grandfather, John Hervey (1665-1751) [q. v.] on 20 Jan. 1751, and hereditary high steward of Bury St. Edmunds. On 5 April 1755 he was gazetted envoy extraordinary to Turin, a post which he quitted in August 1758, on being appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Madrid. Upon the ratification of the family compact between the houses of Bourbon, he left Madrid without taking leave on 17 Dec. 1761. He was nominated lord-lieutenant of Ireland and a privy councillor on 26 Sept. 1766. The king Wrote to Chatham that he expected ‘his constant residence while he held his office. But Bristol threw up the post next year without visiting Ireland, although he received the usual allowance of 3,000l. for his voyage. On 2 Nov. 1768 he was chosen lord keeper of the privy seal, in which ofiice he continued until 29 Jan. 1770, when he became groom of the stole and first lord of the bedchamber to the king. He died unmarried on 18 or 20 March 1775. Wraxall tells a story of a gross insult inflicted by Nugent and Lord Temple on Bristol when a young man, and of the spirited way in which Bristol resented it (Memoirs, i. 94-6). His portrait after J. Zoffany has been engraved.
[Doyle’s Official Baronage, i. 239; Collins’s Peerage (Brydges), iv. 158-9; Burke's Peerage, 1339. 13- 178; Walpole’s Letters (Cunningham); Walpole’s Memoirs of George III, iii. 98; Stanhope’s Hist. of England, ch. xxxvii. xxxviii.; Lecky’s Hist. of England, iv. 371-2.]
HERVEY, JAMES (1714–1758), devotional writer, was born at Hardingstone, a village one mile from Northampton, on 26 Feb. 1713-14. His father was the incumbent of Collingtree, a neighbouring village. He was educated as a day scholar at the free grammar school, Northampton. At the age of seventeen he was sent to Lincoln College, Oxford, under the tuition of Dr. Hutchins, the rector of the college. During the first two or three years of his Oxford course he was rather idle, but in 1783 was greatly influenced by the Oxford methodists. In 1734 he began to learn Hebrew without any teacher at the persuasion of John Wesley, then fellow and tutor of Lincoln College. Hervey in his letters gratefully owns his obligations to Wesley for this and other services. After having graduated B.A. he received holy orders at the end of 1736 or the beginning of 1737. He held a Crewe exhibition of 20l. a year at Lincoln College, and his father urged him to take a curacy in or near Oxford so that he might still retain his exhibition. He thought it unfair to keep what another might want more, and after acting as curate to his father for a short while he went to London. He was curate for a year at Dummer in Hampshire, the rector being Mr. Kinchin, one of the early Oxford methodists. In 1738 he became chaplain to Paul Orchard of Stoke Abbey, Devonshire. He was godfather to Orchard’s son and heir, and dedicated the second volume of the ‘Meditations’ to his godchild. He remained at Stoke for more than two years, and then (1740) became curate of Bideford, North Devon. While in Devonshire he planned and probably began his ‘Meditations among the Tombs.’ An excursion to Kilkhampton from Bideford is said to have been the occasion of his laying the scene of the ‘Meditations’ among the tombs of that place. His friends at Bideford contributed to raise his stipend to 60l. per annum. When after serving this curacy for nearly three years he was dismissed by a new rector, the parishioners offered to maintain him at their own expense. But he returned to Weston Favell, a living which his father held with Collingtree, in 1743, and became his father’s curate.
