John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich

John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich

Coat of arms of the Earl of Sandwich

John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (born November 13, 1718 - April 30, 1792 in Chiswick ) was a British diplomat and statesman . Today he is best known for the sandwich that is named after him .

Origin and family

John Montagu came from a family belonging to the gentry of Northamptonshire and who owed their rise to the Stuarts . His ancestor Admiral Montagu (1625–1672) had been the naval commander of the English Republic, but had supported the Restoration, brought King Charles II back to England from the Netherlands and was made Earl of Sandwich for it.

John's grandfather, Edward Montagu, the 3rd Earl, had made a small fortune before he was incapacitated for mental illness and placed under custody. His wife, Elizabeth Wilmot († 1757), daughter of the 2nd Earl of Rochester, went to Paris to the Stuarthof and took the rest of the fortune with her.

John's father, Edward Richard Montagu († 1722), Viscount Hinchinbrooke, died before John was four years old. His mother, Elizabeth Popham, married a second time in 1728. Two years earlier she had got rid of her children and given John to Eton , although at seven he was actually still too young to be officially accepted (a practice that was not uncommon at the time). John and his younger brother were now practically orphaned. They therefore became wards of the Court of Chancery in 1730 , which administered their affairs in trust. In the myriad of letters left by the Earl of Sandwich, there is not a single letter from the Earl to his mother or from the mother to her son. She is almost never mentioned, although she did not die until 1761.

Life

John Montague was born in 1718 as the son of Edward Richard Montagu († 1722), Viscount Hinchinbroke, and Elizabeth Popham and in 1729 followed his grandfather Edward Montagu, the 3rd Earl in the Earl dignity . Trained at Eton and Trinity College , Cambridge . He was a very eager student and especially his teacher Dr. It is thanks to Sommer that he completed the school subjects with very good results. Linguistically, he dealt mainly with Latin and Greek. After leaving school, he spent some time traveling before returning to England in 1739 and - as a supporter of the Duke of Bedford  - took his seat in the House of Lords .

He was quickly made a member of the Admiralty under Bedford and a colonel in the army. In 1746 he was an authorized representative at the Congress of Breda and took part in the peace negotiations that ended the War of the Austrian Succession until the Peace of Aachen in 1748 . In February 1748 he became First Lord of the Admiralty (Minister of the Navy), which he remained until his release by the King in June 1751.

In August 1753 he became one of the first ministers and, as such, played a leading role in the prosecution of John Wilkes . He was a member of the infamous Medmenham Brotherhood with Wilkes , but now turned against his former companion. This change of attitude made him very unpopular, he was - an allusion to a line in the Beggar's Opera  - Jemmy Twitcher called. In 1763 he held the office of public prosecutor.

He became postmaster-general (post office minister) in 1768 , minister of state in 1770 and was again First Lord of the Admiralty from 1771 to 1782. The Earl of Sandwich's administration is unique in Royal Navy history for its corruption and incompetence . Items were bought, depots embezzled, and worst of all, unseaworthy and poorly equipped ships were sent into battle. Sandwich was therefore very unpopular, and his dismissal in 1782 was greeted with jubilation.

John Sandwich had met his future partner Dorothy Fane (1716–1797), the daughter of Charles Fane, 1st Viscount Fane (1676–1744), in 1737. They married on March 3, 1741 in St. Margaret's Church in London Westminster. With Dorothy he had a son, John (1743-1814), who succeeded John Montagu as the fifth earl. He also had several illegitimate children with the singer Margaret or Martha Ray , of whom Basil Montagu (1770-1851) was known as a writer, lawyer and philanthropist. The murder of Miss Ray by a rejected suitor in April 1779 increased the lord's unpopularity, which was already great. The stigma of the Wilkes affair and his corrupt administration clung to him to the end. He died on April 30, 1792.

Aftermath

The English navigator James Cook named a group of islands in the South Atlantic after Sandwich while he was still alive : the South Sandwich Islands . Furthermore, the south sandwich ditch with a depth of 8,264 m is named after him. In addition, Hawaii was called the Sandwich Islands by James Cook , but later renamed. As Jemmy Twitcher, he is also the namesake of the Twitcher Glacier and Twitcher Bay in South Georgia and the Twitcher Rock , a cliff that belongs to the South Sandwich Islands.

Sandwich legend

John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718–1792), was a keen cribbage player. During this leisure activity, which he was reluctant to interrupt, he often nourished himself for almost twenty-four hours a day on this dish, which originally only consisted of beef between two toasted slices of white bread. This simple manner suited him because he often suffered from lack of money and otherwise led an undemanding life. The new dish was very fashionable in London at the time.

As his biographer Rodger shows, there is only one source for this rumor, a travel book by Pierre-Jean Grosley . It is more likely that he invented the sandwich to be able to eat while at work, as he was very busy during the period in question (1765).

Works

• Voyage round the Mediterranean in the Years 1738 and 1739 . Cadell & Davies, London 1799 ( posthumously ) with a very flattering memorandum by Rev. John Cooke

literature

• Sandwich, Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 24 : Sainte-Claire Deville - Shuttle . London 1911, p. 142 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
• The Life, Adventures, Intrigues and Amours of the celebrated Jemmy Twitcher . Garland, New York 1975 (repr. Of the London 1770 edition); conveys a completely different view of things
• George Martelli: Jemmy Twitcher. Cape, London 1962
• NAM Rodger: The Insatiable Earl. A Life of John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich . HarperCollins, London 1993

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jan Montagu. In: Encyclopedia of World Biographies . Gale Group, 2010

predecessor	Office	successor
Edward Montagu	Earl of Sandwich 1729-1792	John Montagu
John Russell	First Lord of the Admiralty 1748–1751	George Anson
George Grenville	First Lord of the Admiralty 1763	John Perceval
Edward Hawke	First Lord of the Admiralty 1771–1782	Augustus Keppel