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Fane family, Earls of Westmorland

This page summarises records created by this Family

The summary includes a brief description of the collection(s) (usually including the covering dates of the collection), the name of the archive where they are held, and reference information to help you find the collection.

Date: 1100-2000
History:

The Fane family held land at Tudeley and elsewhere in Kent by the late Middle Ages. Sir Thomas Fane married Mary Nevill (d. 1626), daughter and heir of the 6th Lord Abergavenny and Baroness Le Despenser in her own right. She inherited the Nevill estates of Mereworth (Kent) and Althorne (Essex). Their son, Francis Fane (1583-1628) married in 1599 Mary, daughter and heir of Sir Anthony Mildmay (d. 1617), through whom he acquired the Apethorpe (Northamptonshire) estate and property in Wiltshire that Mildmay had inherited through his marriage to a co-heir of Sir Henry Sherrington of Lacock (Wiltshire). Francis Fane was created Earl of Westmorland in 1624. An estate at Sharlston (Yorkshire, West Riding) entered the family through the 6th Earl’s marriage in 1707 to Catherine, daughter and heir of Thomas Stringer of Sharlston. The Apethorpe estate was sold in 1904 to Henry Brassey, later Baron Brassey.

On the death of the 7th Earl in 1762 the Kent properties passed to descendants of his sisters (see below), but the earldom and the other estates were inherited by his cousin Thomas Fane (1707-71), the son of Henry Fane of Redland (Gloucestershire) and grandson of Sir Francis Fane of Fulbeck (Lincolnshire), the 2nd Earl’s younger brother. Before his accession as 8th Earl, Thomas Fane had already inherited his father’s estate at Brympton (Somerset) and other property from his mother, sister and co-heir in her issue of John Scrope of Wormsley (Buckinghamshire). Brympton subsequently passed to a daughter of the 11th Earl, Lady Rose Weigall (1834-1921), to whom certain family papers, including the correspondence of Priscilla, Countess of Westmorland, also descended.

Mary, a sister of the 7th Earl, married Sir Francis Dashwood, 1st baronet of West Wycombe (Buckinghamshire) in 1705. Her sister Catherine married William Paul and had a daughter Catherine, her heir, who married Sir William Stapleton, 4th baronet of Rotherfield Greys (Oxfordshire), to which family the Kent estate and the barony of Le Despenser ultimately passed, together with the Fane family papers and Kent estate muniments kept at Mereworth Castle.

Estates in 1883: 5,973 acres in Northamptonshire; 1,401 acres in West Riding of Yorkshire; worth a total of £11,142 a year.

Places:
  • Althorne, Essex
  • Apethorpe, Northamptonshire
  • Badsell, Kent
  • Medmenham, Buckinghamshire
  • Mereworth, Kent
  • Nassington, Northamptonshire
  • Oundle, Northamptonshire
  • Sharlston, Yorkshire
  • Stanground, Huntingdonshire
  • Thorney, Cambridgeshire
  • Tudeley, Kent
Sources of authority: Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Principal family and estate collections A-K, 1996, p. 56.
Name authority reference: GB/NNAF/F86635 (Former ISAAR ref: GB/NNAF/F2270 )
Collections
Number Description Held by Reference Further information
1
12th cent-20th cent: Northants (Apethorpe, etc) deeds, family and estate papers and misc papers rel to property in Bucks, Cambs (Thorney), Essex (Althorne), Hunts, Kent (Mereworth, etc), Wilts, Yorks (Sharlston), etc
Northamptonshire Archives Service
NRA 36056

See HMC Principal family and estate collections A-K, 1996 [34a]
2
1834-1862: Northants (Apethorpe, etc) legal papers and rentals, valuations and estate papers
Northamptonshire Archives Service
NRA 4039 Northants RO misc
3
1838-early 20th cent: misc Northants (Nassington, Oundle, etc) manorial records
Northamptonshire Archives Service
NRA 4039 Northants RO misc
4
1710-early 20th cent: Northants (Apethorpe, Nassington, etc) manorial records
Northamptonshire Archives Service
NRA 4039 Northants RO misc
5
1897-1904: Apethorpe (Northants) estate trust deeds and papers
Lincolnshire Archives
NRA 10303
6
16th cent-19th cent: Bucks (Medmenham, etc) deeds and papers
Northamptonshire Archives Service
NRA 36056

See HMC Principal family and estate collections A-K, 1996 [34a]
7
13th-18th cent: Kent (Mereworth, etc) deeds and papers
Northamptonshire Archives Service
NRA 36056

See HMC Principal family and estate collections A-K, 1996 [34a]
8
14th cent-18th cent: misc Kent (Mereworth, Tudeley, etc) deeds and papers
Kent History and Library Centre
NRA 7749
9
early 17th cent: misc Kent and Northants legal, estate and family papers
British Library, Manuscript Collections
See HMC Principal family and estate collections A-K, 1996 [34d]
10
1533-1637: misc Kent (Badsell, etc) deeds and papers
The National Archives
See HMC Principal family and estate collections A-K, 1996 [34e]
11
1761-1762, 1884-1900: misc Yorks (Sharlston) estate papers
Northamptonshire Archives Service
NRA 36056

See HMC Principal family and estate collections A-K, 1996 [34a]
12
14th cent-20th cent: Yorks (Sharlston) deeds and estate papers 14th-20th cent and misc Stringer family papers 16th-18th cent
West Yorkshire Archive Service, Leeds
NRA 35464 Fane

See HMC Principal family and estate collections A-K, 1996 [34b]
13
16th cent-17th cent: Stringer family account book and commonplace book
West Yorkshire Archive Service, Leeds
See HMC Principal family and estate collections L-W, 1999 [Addenda]
14
c1598: barony of Abergavenney legal case papers
British Library, Manuscript Collections
See HMC Principal family and estate collections A-K, 1996 [34c]
15
15th cent-18th cent: Fane family and misc papers
British Library, Manuscript Collections
See HMC Principal family and estate collections A-K, 1996 [34d]
16
1789-1806: papers of the 10th Earl, mainly as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
National Archives of Ireland
NRA 22312 Fane

See HMC Papers of British cabinet ministers 1782-1900, 1982 p20
17
18th cent-20th cent: Fane and Weigall family papers, incl papers of the 11th Earl
Kent History and Library Centre
NRA 15266

See HMC Principal family and estate collections A-K, 1996 [34g]
18
1814-1850: diplomatic and military papers of the 11th Earl
Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Special Collections
See HMC Principal family and estate collections A-K, 1996 [34h]
19
mid 18th cent: Fane family papers, mainly of the 8th Earl, incl Lyme Regis (Dorset) election papers 1761-62
Lincolnshire Archives
NRA 10303
20
17th cent-18th cent: Fane family papers 17th-18th cent, mainly of the 7th Earl, incl lunacy papers of Henry Fane 1738-77 and papers rel to Mereworth Castle (Kent)
Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Special Collections
NRA 892 Dashwood