Our Family History
Nash, Richard
1674 - 1762 (87 years)
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Name Nash, Richard [1, 2, 3, 4] Birth 18 Oct 1674 Swansea, Wales 
[5] Gender Male Given Name Used Beau Nash Occupation Bath, Somerset, England [6] master of ceremonies Occupation 1735 Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England [7] Master of Ceremonies Death 3 Feb 1762 Bath, Somerset, England [5] Person ID I1154 Jennerations Last Modified 28 Oct 2021
Father Nash, R. Mother E. Family ID F367 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family Popjoy, Juliana, c. 1714, Bishopstrow, Warminster, Wiltshire, England Notes - Marriage Status: Never Married
Family ID F636 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 6 Jun 2019
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Event Map 
Birth - 18 Oct 1674 - Swansea, Wales 
Occupation - master of ceremonies - - Bath, Somerset, England 
Occupation - Master of Ceremonies - 1735 - Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England Death - 3 Feb 1762 - Bath, Somerset, England = Link to Google Earth
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Photos Nash_richard
Keywords: Document
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Notes - RICHARD NASH (1674-1762), English dandy, better known as "Beau Nash," was born at Swansea on the 18th of October 1674. He was descended from an old family of good position, but his father from straitened means had become partner in a glass business. Young Nash was educated at Carmarthen grammar school and at Jesus College, Oxford. He obtained a commission in the army, which, however, he soon exchanged for the study of law at the Temple. Here among "wits and men of pleasure" he came to be accepted as an authority irk regard to dress, manners and style. When the members of the Inns of Court entertained William III. after his accession, Nash was chosen to conduct the pageant at the Middle Temple. This duty he performed so much to the satisfaction of the king that he was offered knighthood, but he declined the honour, unless accompanied by a pension. As the king did not take the hint, Nash found it necessary to turn gamester. The pursuit of his calling led him in 1705 to Bath, where he had the good fortune almost immediately to succeed Captain Webster as master of the ceremonies. His qualifications for such a position were unique, and under his authority reforms were introduced which rapidly secured to Bath a leading position as a fashionable watering-place. He drew up a new code of rules for the regulation of balls and assemblies, abolished the habit of wearing swords in places of public amusement and brought duelling into disrepute, induced gentlemen to adopt shoes and stockings in parades and assemblies instead of boots, reduced refractory chairmen to submission and civility, and introduced a tariff for lodgings. Through his exertions a handsome assembly-room was also erected, and the streets and public buildings were greatly improved. Nash adopted an outward state corresponding to his nominal dignity. He wore an immense white hat as a sign of office, and a dress adorned with rich embroidery, and drove in a chariot with six greys, laced lackeys and French horns. When the act of parliament against gambling was passed in 1745, he was deprived of an easy though uncertain means of subsistence, but the corporation afterwards granted him a pension of six score guineas a year, which, with the sale of his snuff-boxes and other trinkets, enabled him to support a certain faded splendour till his death on the 3rd of February 1762. He was honoured with a public funeral at the expense of the town. Notwithstanding his vanity and impertinence, the tact, energy and superficial cleverness of Nash won him the patronage and notice of the great, while the success of his ceremonial rule, as shown in the increasing prosperity of the town, secured him the gratitude of the corporation and the people generally. He was a man of strong personality, and considerably more able than Beau Brummell, whose prototype he was.
See Lewis Melville, Bath under Beau Nash (1908), with full list of authorities; Oliver Goldsmith, Life of Richard Nash (1762). See also Gentleman's Magazine (1762); London Magazine, vol. xxxi.; "The Monarch of Bath" in Blackwood's Magazine, vol. xlviii - Beau Nash, whose clothes were so spectacularly laced with gold that, Lord Chesterfeld claimed, ‘he was taken by many at a distance for a gilt garland’.
- RICHARD NASH (1674-1762), English dandy, better known as "Beau Nash," was born at Swansea on the 18th of October 1674. He was descended from an old family of good position, but his father from straitened means had become partner in a glass business. Young Nash was educated at Carmarthen grammar school and at Jesus College, Oxford. He obtained a commission in the army, which, however, he soon exchanged for the study of law at the Temple. Here among "wits and men of pleasure" he came to be accepted as an authority irk regard to dress, manners and style. When the members of the Inns of Court entertained William III. after his accession, Nash was chosen to conduct the pageant at the Middle Temple. This duty he performed so much to the satisfaction of the king that he was offered knighthood, but he declined the honour, unless accompanied by a pension. As the king did not take the hint, Nash found it necessary to turn gamester. The pursuit of his calling led him in 1705 to Bath, where he had the good fortune almost immediately to succeed Captain Webster as master of the ceremonies. His qualifications for such a position were unique, and under his authority reforms were introduced which rapidly secured to Bath a leading position as a fashionable watering-place. He drew up a new code of rules for the regulation of balls and assemblies, abolished the habit of wearing swords in places of public amusement and brought duelling into disrepute, induced gentlemen to adopt shoes and stockings in parades and assemblies instead of boots, reduced refractory chairmen to submission and civility, and introduced a tariff for lodgings. Through his exertions a handsome assembly-room was also erected, and the streets and public buildings were greatly improved. Nash adopted an outward state corresponding to his nominal dignity. He wore an immense white hat as a sign of office, and a dress adorned with rich embroidery, and drove in a chariot with six greys, laced lackeys and French horns. When the act of parliament against gambling was passed in 1745, he was deprived of an easy though uncertain means of subsistence, but the corporation afterwards granted him a pension of six score guineas a year, which, with the sale of his snuff-boxes and other trinkets, enabled him to support a certain faded splendour till his death on the 3rd of February 1762. He was honoured with a public funeral at the expense of the town. Notwithstanding his vanity and impertinence, the tact, energy and superficial cleverness of Nash won him the patronage and notice of the great, while the success of his ceremonial rule, as shown in the increasing prosperity of the town, secured him the gratitude of the corporation and the people generally. He was a man of strong personality, and considerably more able than Beau Brummell, whose prototype he was.
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Sources - [S867] Book lists on Beau Nash 1960/70, F0417.
- [S868] H I Piper, Family research H Piper, F0418.
- [S1380] Assorted Beau Nash documents, F0719.
- [S1836] Derivatives: Database, Online: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - Rishard Nash, F0584. (Reliability: 2).
- [S634] H I Piper, Biography of Beau Nash, (Summary of article in Encyclopedia Britanniica), F0211.
- [S1417] The Bath and Country Graphic, (Vol iv, 1 - 4), F0752.
- [S936] Souvenir of Royal Tunbridge Wells Golden Jubilee celebratons 1959, F0482.
- [S867] Book lists on Beau Nash 1960/70, F0417.