Henry Fox, 4th Baron Holland

Who was Henry Fox, 4th Baron Holland?

Henry Edward Fox, 4th Baron Holland, of Holland, 4th Baron Holland, of Foxley, MP was briefly a British Whig politician and later an ambassador.

Fox was born at Holland House, London, the eldest legitimate child of the 3rd Baron Holland and his wife, Elizabeth Vassall, and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford.

He briefly held the seat of Horsham from 1826-27 before joining the Diplomatic Service in 1831, after which he was Secretary to the Legation at Turin from 1832–35, Attaché at St Petersburg, Secretary at the Embassy in Vienna from 1835–38, to the German Confederation in 1838 and to Florence from 1839-46.

On 9 May 1833, he had married Lady Mary Augusta Coventry. They had two stillborn children before adopting a daughter, Marie Fox.

Selections from the entertaining journal he kept from 1818 to 1830 were published in 1923, edited by Lord Ilchester. In it, he records his life in British high society and his travels, his encounters with such notabilities as Talleyrand, Samuel Rodgers, Sydney Smith and Lord Byron.