Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fane, John (1759-1841)
FANE, JOHN, tenth Earl of Westmorland (1759–1841), eldest son of John Fane, ninth earl, was born 1 June 1759, and educated at the Charterhouse and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where Mr. Bennet, afterwards bishop of Cloyne, was his tutor; he proceeded M.A. in 1778. He succeeded to the earldom at the age of fifteen. While at Cambridge he formed a friendship with William Pitt, which continued through life. In October 1789 he accepted the office of joint postmaster-general, and was sworn a member of the privy council. In the following January he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, which office he held till January 1795. He was opposed to the emancipation of the catholics, and was recalled in consequence of the determination of Pitt to grant in some measure the catholic demands; but was at once offered the post of master of the horse, which he retained till 1798, when he became lord privy seal. He remained in this office for nearly thirty years, except for a few months in 1806–7, when a whig ministry was in power, and finally resigned it in 1827, when the Earl of Liverpool's administration came to an end. He was appointed knight of the Garter in 1793. He filled the post of recorder of Lyme Regis and of lord-lieutenant of Northamptonshire from the year 1828. For many years before his death he retired from politics, and during the last year or two of his life was quite blind. He died in his eighty-third year on 15 Dec. 1841 (Raikes, Diary, under 16 Dec. 1841). The earl was twice married. His first wife was Sarah Anne, only daughter and heiress of Robert Child, the London banker. He eloped with Miss Child in May 1782, and succeeded in reaching Scotland, where the marriage took place. The bulk of Mr. Child's property was left to the eldest daughter by this marriage, Lady Sarah Sophia Fane, who married the Earl of Jersey. Lady Westmorland died on 9 Nov. 1793, having borne six children, and in 1800 the earl married his second wife, Jane, daughter and coheiress of Richard Huck Saunders, M.D. By her, who died 26 March 1857, he had three sons and one daughter. His second wife and six of his children survived him. His portrait was painted by Lawrence in 1807.
[Gent. Mag. new ser. xvii. 207; Public Characters of 1803–4, p. 413 (signed T. L. H.); Times, 17 Dec. 1841, p. 5; Stanhope's Life of Pitt, 1862, ii. 42, 276, 292, 383; Doyle's Official Baronage, iii. 644.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.120
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 176 | i | 3 f.e. | Fane, John, 10th Earl of Westmorland: for paymaster-general read postmaster-general |
| ii | 16-17 | omit and was for a short time . . . . George IV |