Frederick Fermor-Hesketh, 2nd Baron Hesketh

Frederick Fermor-Hesketh, 2nd Baron Hesketh DL (8 April 1916 – 10 June 1955), was a British peer and soldier.[1]

Background and education

Hesketh was the son of Thomas Fermor-Hesketh, 1st Baron Hesketh, and Florence Louise Breckinridge, of Kentucky, daughter of John Witherspoon Breckinridge, and granddaughter of General (CSA) John C. Breckinridge, Vice-President of the United States of America and Secretary of War for the Confederate States of America, in 1909. He was educated from 1926 at Eton and later Magdalene College, Cambridge.[2]

Military service

Hesketh was a major in the Scots Guards. He succeeded in the barony on the death of his father on 20 July 1944. In 1950 he became a Deputy Lieutenant of Northamptonshire.[2]

Family life

On 22 November 1949[3] he married Christian Mary McEwen (known as Christian Lady Hesketh) (17 July 1929 – 7 April 2006),[3] daughter of Captain Sir John Helias Finnie McEwen and had three children:

  • Thomas Alexander (known as Alexander), 3rd Baron Hesketh (b. 28 October 1950)
  • Robert (1 November 1951 – 2 Feb 1997, car accident[3][4])
  • John (15 March 1953 – 2 November 2008[5])

Hesketh was a collector of top-end books in the early 1950s. The trustees of his will sold some of his books, manuscripts and letters in 2010 at Sotheby's. The four volumes of John James Audubon's Birds of America were bought by renowned London book dealer Michael Tollemache for a record £7,321,250.[6]

Arms

Coat of arms of Frederick Fermor-Hesketh, 2nd Baron Hesketh
Crest
1st A garb Or banded Azure (Hesketh); 2nd Out of a ducal coronet Or a cock’s head Gules combed and wattled Gold.
Escutcheon
Quarterly 1st & 4th Argent on a bend Sable three garbs Or (Hesketh); 2nd & 3rd Argent a fess Sable between three lions’ heads erased Gules (Fermor).
Supporters
On either side a griffin Or gorged with a collar Gules thereon a fleur-de-lis Gold and charged on the shoulder with a rose also Gules barbed and seeded Proper.
Motto
Hora E Sempre [7]

See also

References

  1. ^ Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages [self-published source] [better source needed]
  2. ^ a b The Peerage website
  3. ^ a b c "The Dowager Lady Hesketh" The Daily Telegraph, 12 April 2006, accessed 14 April 2011
  4. ^ Traffic accident in California
  5. ^ Johnny Hesketh obituary in The Daily Telegraph
  6. ^ "World record as book sells for £7m". Daily Telegraph. 8 December 2010. Retrieved 14 January 2011.
  7. ^ Burke's Peerage. 1949.
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Baron Hesketh
1944–1955 		Succeeded by