John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich
He replaced the distinguished Admiral Edward Hawke in the post. Later Sandwich found 16 years of happiness with the talented opera singer Martha Ray, who bore him about nine children of whom Basil Montagu (1770 – 1851), writer, jurist and philanthropist, was one.Recent scholarship has suggested that the two had a more distant but cordial relationship than the friendship which was popularly portrayed at the time. He became a Patriot Whig and one of the sharpest critics of the Walpole government. He was soon appointed one of the Commissioners of the Admiralty under Bedford and a Colonel in the Army. In 1746 he was sent as a plenipotentiary to the congress at Breda, and he continued to take part in the negotiations for peace until the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was concluded in 1748.
The sober alternative is provided by Sandwich s biographer, N. During his life he held various military and political offices (such as Postmaster General and First Lord of the Admiralty), but is perhaps most renowned for the claim to have originated the modern concept of the sandwich. Educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, Montagu spent some time in travelling, and on his return to England in 1739 he took his seat in the House of Lords as a follower of the Duke of Bedford.
Tragedy was to strike again in April 1779 when Ray was murdered in the foyer of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden by a jealous suitor, James Hackman, Rector of Wiveton. He was the patron of the Italian violinist Felice Giardini, and created a Catch Club , where professional singers would sing ancient and modern catches, glees, and madrigals.
It is said that he ordered his valet to bring him meat tucked between two pieces of bread. Newcastle engineered the dismissal of both of them, by sacking Sandwich.
John Gay s The Beggar s Opera was played in Covent Garden shortly thereafter, and the similarity of Sandwich s conduct to that of Jemmy Twitcher, betrayer of Macheath in that play, permanently attached to him that appellation. Lord Sandwich was Postmaster General in 1768, Secretary of State again in 1770. Sandwich served again as First Lord of the Admiralty in Lord North s administration from 1771 to March 1783. Sandwich was also made British Ambassador to the Dutch Republic during the talks.
Captain James Cook named the Sandwich Islands, (now Hawaii), which were discovered in 1778, after him, as well as the South Sandwich Islands, and also Montague Island in Alaska. After his Naval career, Sandwich turned his energy toward music. He also put on performances of George Frideric Handel s oratorios, masques, and odes at his estate.
The Grisons is known for its dried meat, Bündnerfleisch, while its then subject territory the Valtelline, where De Salis also grew up, is known for Bresaola. Sandwich was a great supporter of Cook’s Pacific exploration, and supplied Admiralty funds for the purchase and fit-out of the Resolution, Adventure and Discovery. In 1763 he returned to the Admiralty in the government of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, and encouraged a major rebuilding programme for the Royal Navy.
His title of Earl of Sandwich passed to his eldest son, John Montagu, 5th Earl of Sandwich, who was 48 at the time. The modern sandwich is possibly named after Lord Sandwich but not invented by him. Bedford resigned in protest, as Newcastle had calculated, allowing him to replace them with men he considered more loyal personally to him. For the next few years Sandwich spent time at his country estate, largely avoiding politics, though he kept in close contact with both Bedford and Anson and Britain s participation in the Seven Years War.
It was during this time that he first met Martha Ray who became his long-standing mistress. Because Montagu also happened to be the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, others began to order the same as Sandwich! .
M. Sandwich was instrumental in putting together the Concert of Ancient Music, the first public concert to showcase a canonic repertory of old works. .
Sandwich s first personal tragedy was his wife s deteriorating health and eventual insanity. By 1751 Newcastle, who had previously admired Sandwich for his forthright and hardline views, had increasingly begun to distrust him and his relationship with Bedford.
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, PC, FRS (3 November 1718 – 30 April 1792) succeeded his grandfather, the 3rd Earl, in 1729, at the age of ten. Using the resources of the British Secret Service, Sandwich was able to outmanouvre his French opposite number, by intercepting his secret correspondence.
Rodger, who suggests Sandwich s commitments to the navy, to politics and the arts mean the first sandwich was more likely to have been consumed at his desk. It is also possible that Sandwich s Grisons Republic born brother-in-law, Jerome de Salis, taught him about sandwiches. Sandwich never recovered from his grief. In a famous exchange with Samuel Foote, Sandwich declared, Foote, I have often wondered what catastrophe would bring you to your end; but I think, that you must either die of the p-x, or the halter. My lord , replied Foote instantaneously, that will depend upon one of two contingencies; -- whether I embrace your lordship s mistress, or your lordship s principles. This retort is often misattributed to John Wilkes. Sandwich retired from public duty in 1782, and lived another ten years, dying on 30 April 1792.
Despite the number of important posts that he held during his career, Sandwich s incompetence and corruptness inspired the suggestion that his epitaph should read: Seldom has any man held so many offices and accomplished so little. His incompetence in the Admiralty was said to have undermined the seaworthy efforts in the American War of Independence. Sandwich married Dorothy Fane, daughter of the 1st Viscount Fane, by whom he had a son, John, Viscount Hinchingbrooke (1743 – 1814), who later succeeded as 5th Earl. A.
He became a great proponent of Ancient music (defined by him as music more than two decades old). He was soon dismissed from the office, but was offered the influential Ambassador to Madrid. In August 1763 Sandwich became one of the principal Secretaries of State, and while filling this office he took a leading part in the prosecution of John Wilkes for obscene libel although he had been allegedly associated with Wilkes in the notorious Hellfire Club (also known as the Monks of Medmenham).
His service at Breda drew him to the attention of the influential Duke of Newcastle, who lobbied for him to be given high office when he returned home. In February 1748 he became First Lord of the Admiralty, retaining this post until June 1751.
