William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford (1722–1791)

He played less of a political role than his father, although he was granted a farm of the post fines on 25 March 1756 and was appointed a deputy lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire on 4 August 1757.

[2] Strafford added a neo-Palladian range to Wentworth Castle, his country house in Yorkshire, a project begun in 1759 and completed in 1764.

[4] [5][6] Strafford's friend Horace Walpole described this south front on 2 August 1770, as showing "the most perfect taste in architecture":[7] If a model is sought of the most perfect taste in architecture, where grace softens dignity, and lightness attempers magnificence; where proportion removes every part from peculiar observation, and delicacy of observation recalls every part to notice; where the position is the most happy, and even the colour of the stone the most harmonious; the virtuoso should be directed to the new front of Wentworth-castle: the result of the same elegant judgement that had before distributed so many beauties over that domain, and called from wood, water, hills, prospects and buildings, a compendium of picturesque nature, improved by the chastity of art.Between 1748 and 1751 he also built as his townhouse Wentworth House, 5, St James's Square, London, to the design of Matthew Brettingham The Elder.

[3] It remained the London residence of his descendants until after 1968,[8] and in 1984 was the site of the "Libyan Peoples' Bureau" from which shots were fired which caused the murder of Yvonne Fletcher.

The two became part of a social set which included Horace Walpole, who considered the countess to be a "vast beauty" and immortalised her in a poem which was published in 1765.