Charles Fane, 1st Viscount Fane

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Charles Fane, first Viscount Fane, (1675/76-1744), was an English courtier and a landowner in both England and Ireland.

Fane or ffane was baptised at Basildon in Berkshire on 30 January 1676, he was the second son but heir of the Right Hon. Sir Henry Fane, of Basildon, KB, (1650-1705/06), by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Southcott of Exeter.

His elder brother's death made him eventual heir to the Bourchier estates; the manors of Lough Gur and Glenogra in county Limerick and of Clare, near Tandragee, in county Armagh; to the Fane estate at Basildon in Berkshire; and to the Southcott estate at Calwoodley in Devon.

The elder brother Henry Bourchier Fane was Standard Bearer of the Gentleman Pensioners from 10th April 1689 until early 1696 when he was killed in a duel by one Elias Burgess. This no doubt the same Colonel Elizeus Burges, a self confessed drinker and womaniser, who was British Resident in Venice from 1719-1722, and 1727 to his death in 1736.

Having left Wadham College, Oxford (he had matriculated 3 April 1693) Fane duely replaced his unfortunate elder brother as Standard Bearer from 20 April 1696, a post he had vacated by 31 March 1712.

Meanwhile his younger brother George Fane had become Commander of the Royal ship the Lowestoffe, (a 5th rate, 104.5 x 28 foot ship built at Chatham dockyard in 1697). Appointed Captain in 1709, he died without issue at New York the same year.

Fane was appointed Deputy Lieutenant (DL) for Berkshire, 21 September 1715. He was Member of the Irish Parliament (MP) for Killybegs in county Donegal, a seat controlled by the Conygham family, from 1715-1718.

On 22 April 1718 he was created Baron of Loughguyre, in the county of Limerick, and Viscount Fane, both in the Peerage of Ireland, and number 264 on the roll. He took his seat 21 April 1725, having been appointed to the Irish Privy Council on 5 May 1718.

He stood unsuccessfully for Berkshire in the election of 30 August 1727. At the poll Fane (1319 votes) was beaten into third place by Robert Packer (1620 votes), a distant ancestor of the late Kerry Packer, and by Sir John Stonhouse (1558 votes).

Fane married at the Chelsea Hospital, 12th December 1707 (license dated 19 November 1707), Mary (1686-1762) daughter of the envoy hon. Alexander Stanhope, FRS, (the youngest son of the first Earl of Chesterfield), by Catherine, daughter of Arnold Burghill, of Thingehill Parva, Herefordshire. A sister of soldier-statesman James, Earl Stanhope (1673-1721), Mary Fane was also an old friend of the Mistress of the Robes, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough having been one of the six original Maids of Honour to Queen Anne, appointed 4th June 1702, an office she had vacated by November 1707.

An indenture of settlement dated 19 November 1707 between Charles Fane of Basildon and others, had her marriage portion at 3,000 L (pounds). Robert Walpole, the husband of Mary's first cousin twice-removed Catherine Shorter (c.1682-1737) aka cousin Walpole, was a witness. In the 1720s and 30s she built the sometime renowned Grotto at the Fane's New House by the Thames at Lower Basildon, but in the parish of Streatley in Berkshire. Fane died 7 July 1744 and was buried at Basildon 16 July 1744, aged 68. His widow died 21 and was buried at Basildon on the 30 August 1762, aged 76. They had seven children.

• Charles, 2nd Viscount Fane;
• Mary who married Jerome, 2nd Count de Salis;
• Elizabeth of Windsor (1711-1760);
• Dorothy Fane who married John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich;
• Charlotte of Chelsea (1718-1765), (& c1751, of 10, Old Burlington Street);
• and two who died as children, Lucy (d.1713) and James (d.1714).

[edit] References

• Quadrennial di Fano Saliceorum, volume one, by R. de Salis, London, 2003.
• The Complete Peerage..., by G.E.C. (G. E. Cokayne), Hon. Vicary Gibbs & H.A. Doubleday, vol. V, St. Catherine Press, London, 1926.
• The Grotto House, Toil and Leisure in a modest country house in Berkshire, by Pam Pheasant, ILAM, 2003. ISBN 1 873903 99 5
• other printed ('V.C.H.), and manuscript & family knowledge.
• The House of Commons 1715-1754, by Romney Sedwick, H.M.S.O. for H.P.T., 1970.
• History of the Irish Parliament 1692 - 1800, Commons, Constituencies and statutes, Edith Mary Johnston-Liik, volume IV, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2002.
• John Farrington's print of Basselden from Streatley Hill, 1793

Peerage of Ireland
Preceded by new creations	Viscount Fane 1718–1744	Succeeded by Charles Fane
	Baron of Loughguyre 1718–1744