View source for Charles Fane, 2nd Viscount Fane

{{short description|Landowner in Ireland and England}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2014}}
'''Charles Fane, 2nd Viscount Fane''' (c. 1708 – c. 24 January 1766) was a landowner in Ireland and England, a [[British Whig Party|Whig]] Member of Parliament and the British [[Resident (title)|Resident]] in Florence.
[[File:Detail of pastel of 2nd Lord Fane (c1708-1766) circa 1730s by Rosalba (1675 – 1757), low quality iphone photo.jpg|thumb|Detail of pastel of 2nd Lord Fane, mid 1730s.]]
[[File:MaryStanhopebySchalken.jpg|thumb|Fane's mother, Mary Stanhope in 1702, by [[Godfried Schalcken]]. The [[prime version]] of this portrait is at [[Chevening]]]]
==Early life==
He was the eldest son of [[Charles Fane, 1st Viscount Fane]] by his wife Mary (1686–1762) daughter of the envoy Hon. [[Alexander Stanhope]], FRS and sister of the soldier-statesman [[James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope]] (1673–1721). Fane was educated at [[Eton College|Eton]] c. 1718–1725, and [[Geneva]] which was part of his 1726–1729 [[Grand Tour]]. He is reported to have left Venice on 20 January 1730 (Ingamells and Ford).
==Political career==
A friend and follower of [[John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford]] (1710–1771) he was an Opposition Whig Member of Parliament (MP) for [[Tavistock (UK Parliament constituency)|Tavistock]] from 1734 to 1747, and a Member for [[Reading (UK Parliament constituency)|Reading]] in Berkshire from 1754 to 1761.
Fane interrupted his duties as member for Tavistock when he was appointed [[List of diplomats from the United Kingdom to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany|Minister Plenipotentiary (British Resident)]] to the [[Grand Duchy of Tuscany|Tuscan court]] in March 1734, with an annual salary of 1,300 pounds. He coincided with the final months of [[Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany|Gian Gastone de' Medici]], the last [[Medici]] Grand Duke.
He was in Florence in person between 3 October 1734 and spring 1738; when [[Horace Walpole]]'s later friend [[Sir Horace Mann, 1st Baronet|Horace Mann]], his deputy, replaced him (as the Chargé d'Affairs).
Here's Mann in a letter to Walpole of 7 September 1745:
:'He [Mr Blair] tells me besides that Lord Fane was appointed [he wasn't] ambassador to Constantinople, and would soon set out. This, I own, surprised me, though on reflecting, that seems a proper place for him both to indulge his natural indolence on a sofa, and at other times his passion for horses.'{{citation needed|date=November 2007}}
He joined [[White's]] Young Club (a sub-set of the original) in its foundation year 1743.
He succeeded his father in 1744 to estates in near [[Tandragee]] in county Armagh; near [[Lough Gur]] in county Limerick; at [[Basildon Park|Basildon House]] in Berkshire; and near [[Tiverton, Devon|Tiverton]] in Devon. The Irish estates derived from [[Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath]], an ancestral uncle by marriage, while the Devonshire estates had come from his maternal grandmother's family of Southcote.
At 18 April 1754 poll, after a remarkably expensive contest, Fane only beat the third placed contestant, the court Whig, John Dodd, by one vote, 296 to 295. Dodd petitioned against Fane's return. Bedford and [[William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham|Pitt]] organised Fane's defence. The painter [[William Hogarth]] depicted the 1754 election in his series the [[Humours of an Election]], 1755, which was based on the election in Berkshire's neighbour Oxfordshire.
==Marriage==
On 7 June 1749 Fane married at [[St Benet Paul's Wharf]], Susanna, Lady Juxon (1706–10 April 1792). She was the youngest daughter of John Marriott, Registrar of the [[Court of Chancery]], of [[Stuston]] Hall, near [[Diss, Norfolk|Diss]] in Suffolk, and of [[Sonning]] in Berkshire.
In 1726 she had married Sir William Juxon, 2nd Bt (dsp1739/40) of [[Little Compton, Warwickshire|Little Compton]] in Gloucestershire (now Warwickshire), the heir and great nephew of [[William Juxon|Archbishop Juxon]]. As a widow she lived at Little Compton and at Fane's house in Curzon street.
==Home on Curzon Street==
Fane's leasehold dwelling-house, still extant, on the north side of Curzon Street in London, was bought from Elizabeth Shepherd in 1753. He negotiated with the ground landlord, [[Viscount Scarsdale|Nathaniel Curzon]], for a wider site and added the two-bow fronted wings. The house was given up on the death of his widow in 1792. In 1984 the Saudi Arabian government bought it, by then known as Crewe House, for its embassy, paying 37 million pounds.
==Death==
Sometimes referred to as ''Charles Lord Viscount Fane'' and before that as ''Hon. Charles Fane'', he died without issue and was buried at Lower Basildon, Berkshire, 31 January 1766. His estates, after considering his widow, were divided between his surviving sisters, '''Mary''', wife to [[Jerome, 2nd Count de Salis|Jerome de Salis]], and [[Dorothy Montagu, Countess of Sandwich|Dorothy]] wife of [[John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich|John, fourth Earl of Sandwich]].
The mansion house and estate at Basildon was sold to the [[Nabob]], [[Sir Francis Sykes, 1st Baronet]], and the ''great house'' was replaced by a bijoux [[Palladian]] villa, [[Basildon Park]]. His mother's renowned grotto down the hill at the Thames-side ''New House'' soon disappeared, though the house still stands. The lands in Armagh and Limerick were retained. They were finally partitioned in 1806.
Fane is in two of the monumental hunting scenes by [[John Wootton]] in the Hall at [[Althorp]]. They were commissioned by [[Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough]] and fifth Earl of Sunderland in 1733/34. When Lord Sunderland's youngest brother [[John Spencer (British politician)|hon. Jack Spencer]] died in 1746, their old school friend Fane became guardian of the son, the future [[John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer|1st Earl Spencer]].
==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:detailofScagliolaTabletopwitharmsofFaneimpalingStanhope.jpg|Detail of a [[scagliola]] table top, possibly by [[Ignazio Hugford]], with the arms of Fane impaling Stanhope, for his parents, which it seems his mother had ordered while visiting him in Florence, c1736.
File:Fane Table.jpg|Nineteenth century photograph of the Florentine Table, with [[scagliola]] top, and possibly [[William Kent]] base, with the arms of Fane impaling Stanhope.
</gallery>
==References==
*R. de Salis, ''Quadrennial di Fano Saliceorum, volume one'', London, 2003
*Sir [[Lewis Namier]] & John Brooke (eds), ''The House of Commons 1754 – 1790'', H.M.S.O. for H.P.T., 1964.
*Romney Sedgwick (ed), ''The House of Commons 1715–1754'', HMSO for HPT, 1970 (article by A. N. Newman, vol. II, p.&nbsp;24).
*''A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701–1800''.   Compiled from the [[Brinsley Ford]] Archive by John Ingamells, Yale, 1997.
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{{s-end}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fane, Charles, 2nd Viscount}}
[[Category:1708 births]]
[[Category:1766 deaths]]
[[Category:Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Tavistock]]
[[Category:People educated at Eton College]]
[[Category:People from Basildon, Berkshire]]
[[Category:Viscounts in the Peerage of Ireland]]
[[Category:British MPs 1734–1741]]
[[Category:British MPs 1741–1747]]
[[Category:British MPs 1747–1754]]
[[Category:British MPs 1754–1761]]
[[Category:Fane family|Charles]]
[[Category:Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Reading]]