EARLS

BATHURST  . ALLEN BATHURST, 1st Earl Bathurst (1684-1775), was the eldest son of Sir Benjamin Bathurst (d . 1704), by his wife, Frances (d . 1727), daughter of Sir Allen Apsley of Apsley, Sussex, and belonged to a family which is said to have settled in Sussex before the Norman Conquest . He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, and became member of parliament for Cirencester in May 1705, retaining his seat until December 1711, when he was created Baron Bathurst of Battles-den, Bedfordshire . As a zealous Tory he defended Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, and in the House of Lords was an opponent of Sir Robert Walpole . After Walpole left office in 1742 he was made a privy councillor, and in August 1772 was created Earl Bathurst, having previously received a pension of £2000 a year chargeable upon the Irish revenues . He died on the 16th of September 1775, and was buried in Cirencester church . In July 1704 Bathurst married his cousin, Catherine (d . 1768), daughter of Sir Peter Apsley, by whom he had four sons and five daughters . The earl associated with the poets and scholars of the time . Pope, Swift, Prior, Sterne, and Congreve were among his friends .

He is described in Sterne's Letters to Eliza; was the subject of a graceful reference on the

part of Burke speaking in the House of Commons; and the letters which passed between him and Pope are published in Pope's Works, vol. viii . (London, 1872) .