The Honourable Thomas Fitzmaurice (July 1742 - 28 October 1793) was a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for

Calne Calne () is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, southwestern England,OS Explorer Map 156, Chippenham and Bradford-on-Avon Scale: 1:25 000.Publisher: Ordnance Survey A2 edition (2007). at the northwestern extremity of the North Wessex Downs ...

from 1762 to 1774, and then for Chipping Wycome until 1780.

Early life and family

Fitzmaurice was the younger son of

John Petty, 1st Earl of Shelburne John Petty Fitzmaurice, 1st Earl of Shelburne PC (Ire) (1706 – 14 May 1761), known as John FitzMaurice until 1751 and as The Viscount FitzMaurice between 1751 and 1753, was an Anglo-Irish peer and politician. He was the father of William ...

. His father was the second surviving son of Thomas Fitzmaurice, 1st Earl of Kerry, and his wife Anne Petty, daughter of

Sir William Petty Sir William Petty FRS (26 May 1623 – 16 December 1687) was an English economist, physician, scientist and philosopher. He first became prominent serving Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth in Ireland. He developed efficient methods to su ...

. His father changed his surname in 1751 on inheriting the estates of his uncle,

Henry Petty, 1st Earl of Shelburne Henry Petty, 1st Earl of Shelburne PC (I) (22 October 1675 – 17 April 1751) was an Anglo-Irish peer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1715 to 1727. Background Petty was a younger son of Sir William Petty and Elizabeth, Barone ...

, and was himself created Viscount Fitzmaurice in 1751 and Earl of Shelburne in 1753. His elder brother

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

was an MP before he inherited the family titles on his father's death in 1761; he later became Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1782 and was created

Marquess of Lansdowne Marquess of Lansdowne is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain created in 1784, and held by the head of the Petty-Fitzmaurice family. The first Marquess served as Prime Minister of Great Britain. Origins This branch of the Fitzmaurice famil ...

in 1784. His brother changed his surname to Petty, but Thomas retained the Fitzmaurice name. Fitzmaurice was educated at

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, ...

. From 1759 to 1761, as a student, Thomas boarded with the philosopher and economist Adam Smith who was teaching at Glasgow University.

Career

Llewenni Hall - the seat of the honble Thos Fitzmaurice, Denbighshire

He was called to the bar at

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn ...

. In 1777 he married Mary O'Brien (1755-1831), who became ''suo jure'' 4th Countess of Orkney in 1791. Their son, born in 1778, was

John Fitzmaurice, Viscount Kirkwall John Hamilton FitzMaurice, Viscount Kirkwall (9 October 1778 – 23 November 1820), known as John FitzMaurice until 1791, was a British politician. Background Kirkwall was the son of the Hon. Thomas FitzMaurice, younger son of John Petty, 1st ...

; he died before his mother, but Viscount Kirkwall was the father of the 5th Earl of Orkney, Thomas John Hamilton Fitzmaurice. Thomas and William Fitzmaurice enjoyed a close relationship, both as brothers and in parliament where Thomas "naturally followed his brother's lead". William briefly served as MP for Chipping Wycome in 1760–61. After William was elevated to the House of Lords, he arranged for Thomas to replace

Isaac Barré Isaac Barré (15 October 1726 – 20 July 1802) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and politician. He earned distinction serving with the British Army during the Seven Years' War and later became a prominent Member of Parliament, where he was a vocal s ...

as Member of Parliament for

in December 1762. Thomas represented Calne unopposed until 1774, when he moved to Chipping Wycome, another

rotten borough A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act 1832, which had a very small electorate ...

controlled by his brother, exchanging seats with Barré. However, whereas William eventually became Prime Minister of Great Britain, Thomas Fitzmaurice had left Parliament by 1780, replaced in Chipping Wycome by Charles Stanhope. In 1776 Fitzmaurice bought the

Lleweni Hall Lleweni Hall ( Welsh: ''Plas Lleweni''; sometimes also referred to as Llewenny Palace) was a stately home in Denbighshire, northeast Wales, around north-east of Denbigh on the banks of the River Clwyd. It was the principal seat of the Sal ...

estate in Denbighshire from Sir Robert Cotton for £110,000, where he established a large,

Palladian Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

-style factory, long, to bleach linen from his Irish estates. He was

High Sheriff of Denbighshire The first High Sheriff of Denbighshire was John Salusbury, snr, appointed in 1540. The shrievalty of Denbighshire, together with that of Flintshire, continued until 1974 when it was abolished after the county and shrievalty of Clwyd was create ...

in 1781-2 and

High Sheriff of Flintshire This is a list of High Sheriffs of Flintshire. The High Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly, the High Sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county, but over the centuries most of the responsibilitie ...

in 1783. He sought a

private prosecution A private prosecution is a criminal proceeding initiated by an individual private citizen or private organisation (such as a prosecution association) instead of by a public prosecutor who represents the state. Private prosecutions are allowed in ma ...

of William Davies Shipley, Dean of St Asaph, for

seditious libel Sedition and seditious libel were criminal offences under English common law, and are still criminal offences in Canada. Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection ...

, for publishing a leaflet advocating political reforms in 1783, leading to the notorious case of the Dean of St Asaph.

Later life

His wife succeeded as Countess of Orkney in 1791, and they moved to

Cliveden Cliveden (pronounced ) is an English country house and estate in the care of the National Trust in Buckinghamshire, on the border with Berkshire. The Italianate mansion, also known as Cliveden House, crowns an outlying ridge of the Chiltern ...

. He died in Hampshire.

References

Sources

* http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/fitzmaurice-hon-thomas-1742-93 * http://www.cpat.org.uk/projects/longer/histland/clwyd/1053.htm *History of parliament ; the House of Commons 1784 -1790 L.Namier and J Brooke. Published Boydell and Brewer 1964

External links

The Peerage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fitzmaurice, Thomas 1742 births 1793 deaths People educated at Eton College Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies British MPs 1761–1768 British MPs 1768–1774 British MPs 1774–1780 High Sheriffs of Denbighshire High Sheriffs of Flintshire Younger sons of earls Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Calne