Cecil Fane De Salis

Sir Cecil Fane de Salis, KCB, DL, JP, (31 May 1857 in Fringford – 9 March 1948 in Wargrave),[fn 1] of Dawley Court, Hillingdon, Uxbridge, Middlesex,[fn 2] was chairman of Middlesex County Council 1919–1924, and landowner in the parish of Harlington.[1][2]

Postcard of Cecil Fane de Salis, and his wife and 13 children, 1912.
Dawley Court, Goulds Green, on the border of Harlington and Hillingdon, Middlesex, c. 1890.
Photograph of Dawley Court in 1893.

Biography

A nephew of William Fane de Salis and second of the four sons of Rev. Henry Jerome Fane De Salis of Portnall Park (the seventh son of Jerome, 4th Count de Salis-Soglio) he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford.[fn 3] He became a barrister (Inner Temple, called 1881).

In March 1899 he was elected unopposed to Middlesex County Council to represent Stanwell.[3] He was re-elected three times before unexpectedly losing his seat at the 1910 county council election.[4] He was able to remain a member of the council when he chosen as a county alderman a few days later.[5] He was Chairman of Middlesex County Council from 1919-24.[6] In 1937 he retired from the county council when he did not seek re-election as an alderman.[7]

Chairman and owner of market gardeners H. & A. Pullen Burry, Ltd. of Sompting, West Sussex; he was a director of the Dawley Wall Gravel Pit in the parish of Harlington; JP (Middlesex, 1896–1938), chairman of the bench 1921–1931;[8] Deputy Lieutenant (Middlesex, from 1918); High Sheriff (Middlesex, 1905).[fn 4] In 1931 he became a companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) and was made a knight (KCB) of the same order in 1935.[9]

During the First World War he sat for 449 days (from 25 February 1916) as one of the ten members of the Appeal Tribunal for the County of Middlesex, which he described: "This was sad work and many hard cases had to be dealt with, and often decided against the appellant".[1] He was vice-chairman (1912–1925) and then chairman (1925–1936) of the Middlesex Territorial and Auxiliary Force Association.[fn 5][fn 6] Through Middlesex County Council he was closely associated with the mental hospitals at Harperbury and Shenley. He was also a governor of Uxbridge County School, aka the Bishopshalt School, now in Hillingdon.[fn 7]

Fane De Salis was for many years chairman of the Harlington, Harmondsworth and Cranford Cottage Hospital.

He was a member of the Union Club (site now home to Canada House, Trafalgar Square).

Photograph of George, Peter, Jerome, Edmund and Harry, at Dawley Court, the elder sons of Cecil Fane De Salis in 1900.

Fourteen children
Harry, Cecil's eldest son, in 1898.
Cecil & Rachel De Salis and their grandson Jerome, 1929.

He married, on 3 September 1889, Rachel Elizabeth Frances Waller, (born Farmington, Gloucestershire, 1 January 1868; died Thornbury, Bristol, 6 January 1954), only child and heir of Edmund Waller VI or VII,[fn 8] and had 14 children, living firstly, 1889–1896, with his father at Portnall Park and then at Dawley Court.[10]

  • Henry Edmund Challoner (Harry), born Portnall, 17 July 1891; died Oxford, 20 September 1913
  • Adela Lucy, born Portnall, 9 October 1893; died Portnall, 9 January 1894
  • Edmund William, born Portnall, 31 December 1894; died Hampstead Marshall, 21 January 1980
  • Jerome Joseph, born Portnall, 3 January 1896; died Lincoln, 3 October 1915
  • John Peter, born Dawley, 15 April 1897; died Thornbury, 21 October 1973
  • George Rodolph, born Dawley, 1 June 1898; died France, 21 June 1917
  • Barbara Grace Victoria, born Dawley, 20 January 1900; died Johannesburg, November 1990
  • Rev. Andrew Augustine, born Dawley, 17 January 1901; died 3 February 1962
  • Grace Dorothea, born Dawley, 28 February 1902; died Earsham, Norfolk, 26 February 1977
  • Stephen Hercules, born Dawley, 1 April 1903; died Hollycross, Crazies Hill, 18 September 1934
  • Judith Anna, born Dawley, 10 June 1904; died Ditchingham, Norfolk, 10 February 1983
  • Cecil Ulysses Octavius Fane, born Dawley, 26 October 1906; died Worthing, 29 March 1977
  • Rachel Penelope, born Dawley, 14 April 1908; died Cheltenham, 14 December 1996
  • Arthur Regester, born Dawley, 18 November 1911; died Droitwich, 24 March 2001[9]

Land in Northern Ireland

The Belfast Gazette of 11 March 1927, records Cecil as having 18 parcels of land in county Armagh. These were at Dromart, Tandragee; Ballyworkan, Portadown; Tamnaghvelton; Tamnaghmore; and Brackagh, Portadown. These came to circa 140 acres and were valued at and compulsorily sold to the tenants for circa £2,000 in 1927.[11]

Notes
  1. Buried at Harlington, Middlesex.
  2. He inherited Dawley Court from his uncle William Fane De Salis in 1896 (he sold it in 1929); in old age he lived at Holly Cross House, Crazies Hill, Wargrave, Berkshire. (Sold 1949).
  3. His brothers were Charles, Bishop of Taunton, Rodolph Fane De Salis and Admiral Sir William Fane De Salis.
  4. By virtue of his having been Sheriff in 1905 a full heraldic achievement (as for a count de Salis) in stained glass was put up in his honour in the Middlesex Guildhall, formerly Old Court no. 1, now the Supreme Court's library.
  5. Presumedly part of the 44th (Home Counties) Division?
  6. Three of his four sons who fought in the First World War were in the one of the territorial battalions of the Middlesex Regiment.
  7. He sent all of his elder sons to the school.
  8. Edmund Waller, of Kirkby Fleetham, (inherited as a result of descent from John Aislabie of Studley Royal, Ripon, North Yorkshire and Farmington Lodge, Northleach, Gloucestershire, by Lucy Elwes daughter of Henry Elwes of Colesbourne, Gloucestershire. Lucy Elwes' great-grandfather was John Elwes the miser.

References
  1. De Salis, Cecil; De Salis, Rachel (1939). Notes of Past Days. Henley-on-Thames: Higgs & Co., Caxton Works.
  2. A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3; Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington. London: Victoria County History (VCH). 1962. pp. 261–267.
  3. Middlesex and Surrey Express, 11 March 1899
  4. Uxbridge and West Drayton Gazette, 5 March 1910
  5. Ealing and West Middlesex Observer, 12 March 1910
  6. The County Council of the Administrative County of Middlesex. Middlesex County Council. 1965. p. 47.
  7. Middlesex County Times, 27 February 1927
  8. Bowlt, Eileen (2007). Justice in Middlesex. Hook, UK: Waterside Press.
  9. Townend, Peter, ed. (1965). Burke's Landed Gentry. 1 (18th ed.). London: Burke's Peerage. pp. 251–253.
  10. Fane De Salis, Rachel (1934). De Salis Family: English Branch. Henley-on-Thames.
  11. "No. 298". The Belfast Gazette. 11 March 1927. p. 233.
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