Family and Education

bap. 25 July 1646, 1st s. of Sir George Vane of Long Newton by Elizabeth, da. and h. of Lionel Maddison of Rogerley, co. Dur. educ. Sidney Suss. Camb. 1665; Gray’s Inn, 1665.  m. 20 Jan. 1680, Catherine (d. 1735), da. of Sir George Fletcher, 2nd Bt.*, 6s. (2 d.v.p.) 8da. (4 d.v.p.).  suc. fa. 1679.1

Offices Held

Member, Newcastle-upon-Tyne hostmen’s co. 1684; freeman, Newcastle 1691.2

Biography

Vane’s father was the younger brother of Sir Henry Vane† the regicide and was himself an active supporter of the Commonwealth. In 1659 he had assisted in putting down Sir George Booth’s† royalist coup, and after the Restoration he was alleged, in 1660, to be filling his troop of the Durham militia with persons who had been in arms against Charles I, and with ‘Anabaptists and Quakers’. Vane himself was actively engaged in the coal trade in the north-east, but owed his return to the last three Parliaments of William III’s reign to the support of his cousin Lord Barnard (Christopher Vane*). The compiler of the comparison of the old and new Commons in about September 1698 was uncertain how to classify Vane. Though he was an inactive Member, Vane’s nomination on 1 Feb. 1699 to prepare the address thanking the King for his speech assenting to the disbanding bill may suggest Court sympathies. This conclusion is strengthened by his description of the Commons’ proceedings later that month against placemen as ‘pretty severe’. In February 1701 he was included among a list of those likely to support the Court in agreeing with a supply committee resolution to continue the ‘Great Mortgage’, and in December the same year he was listed by Robert Harley* as a Whig. He did not stand at the 1705 election or subsequently. On 7 Jan. 1704 Vane was one of two men who petitioned the Commons requesting permission to sell part of an estate they had been bequeathed in a will in order to allow them to satisfy the debts of the deceased. A bill to this effect was ordered but did not pass the Commons. Little more is known of Vane, and his death can be dated no more precisely than the granting of administration of his estate on 26 May 1711. He was succeeded by his eldest son, George, and another of his sons became a master of the subpoena office and secretary to Frederick, Prince of Wales, in the reign of George II.3

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. Surtees, Dur. iii. 214; Hutchinson, Dur. iii. 264; IGI, Cumb.
• 2. Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hostmen’s Co. (Surtees Soc. cv), 272; Reg. of Freemen (Newcastle-upon-Tyne Rec. Soc. iii.), 100.
• 3. HMC 7th Rep. 93; Collins, Peerage, iv. 518; Mems. Dean Comber (Surtees Soc. clvii), 261–2.