He was the third son of John Horne, of Newport Street, Long Acre, Westminster, a member of the Worshipful Company of Poulters. As a youth at Eton College, he had claimed "that his father was an eminent Turkey merchant" implying that, rather than a dealer in poultry, he traded with the Eastern Mediterranean. Before Eton, he had been at school in Soho Square, in a Kentish village, and from 1744 to 1746 at Westminster School. He was blinded in his right eye during a schoolboy fight. History of Parliament Online article by R.G. Thorne.
