Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fitzgerald, William Robert Seymour Vesey
FITZGERALD, Sir WILLIAM ROBERT SEYMOUR VESEY (1818–1885), governor of Bombay, son of William, second baron Fitzgerald and Vesey, who died in 1843, was born in 1818. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, 21 Feb. 1833, and migrated to Oriel, where he was Newdigate prizeman in 1835, and graduated B. A., being placed second class in classics in 1837, and M.A. in 1844. He was called to the bar by the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn at Hilary term 1839, and went the northern circuit. In 1848 he was returned for Horsham, Sussex, in the conservative interest, but was unseated on petition. He was returned again for the same borough in 1852, and retained his seat until 1865. He was under-secretary of state for foreign affairs under the Derby administration, in which Lord Malmesbury was foreign secretary, from February 1858 to June 1859. He was appointed governor of Bombay in January 1867, and was sworn in a member of the privy council, and made knight commander of the order of the Star of India the same year, and honorary grand cross of the same order in 1868; he was relieved in March 1872. In February 1874 Fitzgerald was returned to parliament for the third time for the borough of Horsham, and sat until November 1875, when he was appointed chief commissioner of charities in England. Fitzgerald, who was an honorary D.C.L. Oxon. (1863), and a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant of Sussex, died at his residence in Warwick Square, London, 28 June 1885. He married in 1846 Maria Triphena, eldest daughter of the late Edward Seymour, M.D., and by her, who died in 1865, left issue.
[Foster's Knightage, 1882; Law Times, 4 July 1885; Times, 30 June 1885.]