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George Boscawen, 3rd Viscount Falmouth

British viscount (1758-1808)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ5537120 ↗
Source-derived summary

George Boscawen, 3rd Viscount Falmouth, (6 May 1758 – 11 February 1808), was a British army officer and statesman in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This included service as Captain of the Honourable Band of Gentlemen Pensioners in the reign of George III.

Life and career

Boscawen was the third and youngest, but only surviving son of Admiral Edward Boscawen (1711–1761) by his marriage to Frances Glanville (1719–1805). In 1774 he joined the British Army as a cornet, but eventually reached the rank of colonel in 1795. Whilst serving as an officer he succeeded his uncle as Viscount Falmouth in 1782 and took his place in the House of Lords.

He was the chief justice in the Eyre North of Trent from 1789 to 1790, when he was raised to the position of Captain of the Honourable Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, serving in 1790–1806 and from 1807 until his death in 1808. At the same time, he was made a privy councillor.

Family

On 29 June 1784, Falmouth married Elizabeth Anne Crew by special licence, as she was a minor at the time. They had three children:

Edward Boscawen, 1st Earl of Falmouth (10 May 1787 – 29 December 1841)

John Evelyn Boscawen (1790 – 12 April 1851), canon of Canterbury Cathedral

Anne Evelyn Boscawen (23 November 1791 – 5 March 1871), wife of Sir George Warrender, 4th Baronet

Falmouth's wife died on 10 August 1793, and upon his own death in 1808, his estate and titles passed to his eldest son.

In fiction

Named as Lord Falmouth, he is a recurring character in the Poldark novels by Winston Graham, where he is presented as the dominant political figure in Cornwall in his time, due to his unashamed use of patronage and his influence over Parliamentary elections. He appears personally a somewhat distant and arrogant man, but capable of kindness and acts of friendship.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “George Boscawen, 3rd Viscount Falmouth” as british viscount (1758-1808). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1758, 1808, 1711, 1761—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1758-05-06. The account is most persuasive where George, Boscawen and Viscount can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as british viscount (1758-1808). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5537120. VIAF identifies the subject as 58921698. The Library of Congress control number is nr00033985. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1758, 1808, 1711 and 1761.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “George Boscawen, 3rd Viscount Falmouth” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.