British landowner and peer
William Anne Holles Capell, 4th Earl of Essex (7 October 1732 – 4 March 1799), was a British landowner and peer, a member of the House of Lords .
Early life
Capell was born on 7 October 1732 in Turin . He was the son of William Capell, 3rd Earl of Essex (1696–1743), by his second marriage, to Lady Elizabeth Russell .[ 1] Henry Hyde, 4th Earl of Clarendon ), he had several older half-sisters, including Lady Charlotte Capell (wife of Thomas Villiers, 1st Earl of Clarendon ), and Lady Mary Capell (wife of Admiral of the Fleet John Forbes , second son of George Forbes, 3rd Earl of Granard ).
His paternal grandparents were Algernon Capell, 2nd Earl of Essex and Lady Mary Bentinck (eldest daughter of William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland and Anne Villiers). His mother was a daughter of Wriothesley Russell, 2nd Duke of Bedford and the former Elizabeth Howland (daughter and heiress of John Howland of Streatham).[ 1]
Career
In January 1743, at the age of ten, he inherited his father's titles and estates. In 1753, at the age of twenty-one, he took his seat in the House of Lords .[ 2] Lord of the Bedchamber to King George II . He again served in this role for King George III from 1782 to 1799.[ 1]
Lord Essex served as Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire from 1764 to 1771. In 1770, he was made the last Master of the Staghounds .[ 1]
Personal life
Frances, wife of William Capell On 1 August 1754, the Earl of Essex married, firstly, Frances Hanbury Williams, the daughter of Charles Hanbury Williams of Coldbroke and of Lady Francis Coningsby of Hampton Court Castle (a daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Coningsby, 1st Earl Coningsby ).
By his first wife, he had three children (George and his sister Elizabeth were painted in a double-portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1768, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York ):[ 3]
Several years after her death in childbirth in 1759,[ 4] Thomas Bladen of Glastonbury Abbey , Somerset .[ 2] [ 1]
John Thomas Capell (1769–1819), who married Lady Caroline Paget, a daughter of Henry Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge and sister of Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey .[ 1]
Thomas Edward Capell (1770–1855), a general who died unmarried.[ 1]
William Robert Capell (1775–1854), who married Sarah Salter, only daughter of Samuel Salter of Rickmansworth , in 1802.[ 1] Bladen Thomas Capell (1776–1853), the Vice-Admiral of the Blue who married Harriet Catherine Smyth, daughter of Francis George Smyth, in 1816.[ 2] Essex died on 4 March 1799 at St James's Palace , Westminster.[ 5]
References
^ a b c d e f g h i j "Essex, Earl of (E, 1661)" . www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk . Heraldic Media Limited. Retrieved 20 May 2020 .^ a b c d Charles Mosley, ed., Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage , (107th edition, 2003), vol. 1, p. 1348
^ Debrett, John (1840). Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland. revised, corrected and continued by G.W. Collen . Retrieved 20 May 2020 . ^ Seccombe, Thomas . "Williams, Charles Hanbury" Dictionary of National Biography see para 11, page 382 ^ Doyle, James Edmund (1886). The Official Baronage of England: Showing the Succession, Dignities, and Offices of Every Peer from 1066 to 1885, with Sixteen Hundred Illustrations . Retrieved 20 May 2020 .
Further reading
