Edward Wortley Montagu

Edward Wortley Montagu (15 May 1713 – 29 April 1776) was an English writer and traveller.

Biography

He was the son of the diplomat and member of parliament Edward Wortley Montagu and the writer and traveller Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, whose talent and eccentricity he seems to have inherited. In 1716, he was taken by his parents to Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, and at Pera in March 1716-17 was inoculated for smallpox, the first native of the United Kingdom to undergo this medical procedure.

On the return of his parents to England in 1718, he was placed at Westminster School, from which he ran away more than once. On the first occasion, in July 1726, he was traced to Oxford, and was with difficulty 'reduced to the humble condition of a school-boy.' He decamped again in August 1727 and was not recovered for some months. Two similar escapades are mentioned by his tutor, Forster, chaplain to the Duchess of Kingston, but without dates. The first ended in his discovery, after a year's absence, selling fish in Blackwall. The second time, he worked his passage out to Porto, deserted, went up country, and found employment in the vineyards, but returning to Porto in charge of some asses, he was arrested at the instance of the British consul, brought back to his ship, identified and restored to his parents by the master.

He was then sent to travel with a tutor in the West Indies, and afterwards with a keeper to the Netherlands. He made a serious study of Arabic at Leiden in 1741 and returned many years later to prosecute his studies. His father made him a meagre allowance, and he was heavily encumbered with debt.