Family and Education

b. Aug. 1756, o.s. of Sackville Fox of East Horsley, Surr. by Ann née Holloway of Birmingham, Warws. educ. Christ’s, Camb. 1771. m. 23 July 1789, Hon. Maria Lucy Pitt, da. of George Pitt^†, 1st Baron Rivers, 4s. 1da. suc. fa. 1760; uncle George, 1st Baron Bingley, in Yorks. estates 22 Feb. 1773 and took additional name of Lane.

Offices Held

Lt. Dorset militia 1790.

Biography

‘Being of an extravagant turn’, Fox Lane as a youth fell into the clutches of the money-lender Robert Mackreth*, who bought his paternal estate (worth £1,300 p.a.) soon after he came of age. Mackreth also bought the Yorkshire estates, but the sale was cancelled in Chancery. In 1786 Mackreth was ordered to refund the purchase money of the Surrey estate, which he had sold at a ‘very considerable’ profit, and to pay Fox Lane five per cent interest, as well as costs, some £20,000 all told. This was confirmed by the House of Lords on an appeal, 14 Mar. 1791.1

In 1778 Fox Lane had joined Brooks’s Club, but he was no politician. His Yorkshire neighbour Viscountess Irwin returned him to Parliament on her interest for Horsham in 1796. On 15 Dec. 1796 he obtained a fortnight’s leave of absence for his private affairs. He made no mark in the House, no speech or vote surviving; nor did he seek re-election in 1802. He died 7 Apr. 1821 ‘after several years of declining health’, leaving an estate of £120,000.2

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: M. H. Port

Notes

• 1. PRO, C12/584/28; 38/753; 79/243; 107/212; Sporting Mag. (1793), 337; Manning and Bray, Surr. iii. 32; LJ, xxxix. 69.
• 2. Leeds Mercury, 14 Apr. 1821; PCC probate act bk. 1821.