Thomas Fane, 8th Earl of Westmorland

Who was Thomas Fane, 8th Earl of Westmorland?

Thomas Fane, 8th Earl of Westmorland, MP for Lyme Regis and a lord commissioner of trade. Thomas Fane was the second son of Henry Fane of Brympton d'Evercy in Somerset and Anne sister and coheir of John Scrope, children of Thomas Scrope, a Bristol merchant. Anne was a granddaughter of Colonel Adrian Scrope the regicide. Thomas Fane inherited John Scrope's fortune and mansion in Bristol, and from him Colonel Adrian Scrope's property in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

Thomas Fane married Elizabeth Swymmer, the daughter of a Bristol merchant and member of the slave trade, William Swymmer. In 1762 he inherited the title of Earl of Westmoreland from John Fane, 7th Earl of Westmorland, his father's second-cousin, who had died without issue. The couple had two sons and two daughters:

John Fane, 9th Earl of Westmorland

Henry Fane

His daughter Mary married Charles Blair, a wealthy owner of plantations in Jamaica, at St James Westminster in 1762. Charles Blair was the great-great grandfather of Eric Blair, who wrote under the pen name George Orwell.