The Rt Hon. Edward Boscawen (1711-61), joined the navy at an early age; was made captain in 1737; and a lord of the Admiralty in 1749. He also served as MP (Whig) for Truro (1742-61). Boscawen married Frances (Fanny) Glanville (1719-1805), an heiress and one of the founding members of the bluestocking circle, on 11 December 1742.

Adam had worked for Edward and Fanny Boscawen at their home, Hatchlands, from 1759, though some of his interior decoration was curtailed by the Admiral's early death from typhoid in 1761. At that time his widow, Fanny, commissioned Adam to design a monument for St Michael Penkevil church, and on her own death (1805) Fanny was also buried there. The executed monument is signed Robert Adam Archit. Michael Rysbrack Sculpt and dated 1763. Michael Rysbrack (1694-1779) was the sculptor of the caryatid chimneypiece in the great dining parlour at Hatchlands. Though there are five variant schemes detailed in the extant drawings the monument was executed according to Adam volume 19/1 and remains in situ at St Michael Penkevil.

See also: Hatchlands, Surrey

Literature:
A.T. Bolton, The architecture of Robert and James Adam, 1922; Vol. I, pp. 133, 136-138, Vol. II, Index pp. 17 and 63; N. Pevsner and E. Radcliffe, The Buildings of England: Cornwall, 1970, pp. 192-193; K. Eustace, 'Robert Adam, Charles-Louis Clérisseau, Michael Rysbrack and the Hopetoun Chimneypiece', Burlington Magazine 139, November 1997, pp. 743-52

Frances Sands, 2011