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William Bosville

Biography


Birth: 1745
Death: 1813

Son of Godfrey Bosville of Gunthwaite and Diana Wentworth, daughter of Sir Win. Wentworth, 4th Bart of Bretton. Brother of Elisabeth Diana Bosville (d. 1789), the wife of Lord Macdonald of Slate. He was educated at Harrow and entered the Coldstream Guards in December, 1761. A very distant relative of JBs, the names Bosville and Boswell actually both comes from the french Boisville (acc. to Boswell himself, LJ180463). He retired from the army with the rank of Lieutenant in 1777.

He was known as a Bon Vivant in his own lifetime (Link), and had dinner parties in his house on Welbeck Street, London, on an almost daily basis up until his death. He was also a friend of author John Horne Tooke (1736-1812), also known as The Philosopher of Wimbledon. He was buried in the chancel in St. Giles-in-the-Fields.1

Life with James Boswell

Boswell first met Bosville on April 18, 1763 at the Tower of London. In LJ he described the moment as a happy occasion, and Boswell became a firm friend of the Bosvilles later on.

Notes

Note 1: Some information about Bosville from his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Available online at www.Ancestry.co.uk.


Recommended literature

  • Search the Questia online library for "William Bosville"

  • Related links

  • •University of Hull: Bosville-Macdonald family of Gunthwaite

  • Mentioned in

    William Bosville is mentioned in:

  • London Journal 1762-1763
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