Walpole, Horace, 4th Earl of Orford (1717 -1797)

Horace Walpole was the fourth son of Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, and his first wife, Catherine Shorter. He was educated at Bexley in Kent, at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in March 1735, but left without a degree in 1739. He was Member of Parliament for Callington in Cornwall in 1741. In 1747 he moved to Twickenham, where he took the remainder of the lease of a small house, of which he bought the freehold in 1748, and which he called, from an old name in the titledeeds `Strawberry Hill'. He developed the property in the gothic style adding a great parlour with a library over it, a picture gallery, a cloister and a round tower. He maintained his own printing press, the Strawberry Hill Press, or Officina Arbuteana, where he printed a remarkable series of books including the first edition of Thomas Gray's Odes. He was Member of Parliament for Castle Rising in Norfolk 1754, and for Lynn in 1757, from which he resigned in 1767. In 1791 he succeeded to the earldom. The contents of Strawberry Hill were sold by auction in London by order of George, 7th Earl of Waldegrave in 1842. The sale which took 24 days and included the library started on 25 April. The auctioneer was G. Robins.