John Fane, 7th Earl of Westmorland

Who was John Fane, 7th Earl of Westmorland?

John Fane, 7th Earl of Westmorland was an English nobleman, styled The Honourable John Fane from 1691 to 1733 and Lord Catherlough from 1733 to 1736.

John Fane was the son of Vere Fane, 4th Earl of Westmorland and his wife Rachel Bence. He was admitted at Lincoln's Inn in 1703, and entered as a fellow commoner at Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1703/4. He was MP for Hythe from 1708 to 1711, and MP for Kent from 1715 to 1722.

Fane served in the British Army, reaching the rank of colonel in the 1st Troop, Horse Guards. He was created 1st Baron Catherlough of Catherlough in Ireland on 4 October 1733 and succeeded his elder brother as 7th Earl of Westmorland in 1736. He was Member of Parliament for Buckingham from 1727 to 1734. He is also notable for being the patron of Colen Campbell's Palladian Mereworth Castle.

When the 7th Earl, died without issue, in 1762, his Irish barony became extinct, the barony of Le Despencer, being a barony in fee, devolved upon his nephew Sir Francis Dashwood, bart.; and the earldom of Westmorland went to the male heir, Thomas Fane of Bristol, merchant, son of Henry Fane, attorney at law, grandson of Sir Francis Fane, K.B. and great grandson of Sir Francis Fane, of Fulbeck, co. Lincoln, K.B. the third son of Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland.