Monarch William IV
Victoria Monarch Victoria Preceded by Ralph Abercromby | Preceded by Viscount Mahon Name William 4th Succeeded by Lord Leveson | |
Prime Minister The Viscount Melbourne | ||
William Thomas Horner Fox-Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester FRS (7 May 1795 – 10 January 1865), styled The Honourable William Fox-Strangways until 1858, was a British diplomat, Whig politician and art collector. He served as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under Lord Melbourne from 1835 to 1840 and was Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the German Confederation from 1840 to 1849.
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Background and education
Fox-Strangways was the son of Henry Thomas Fox-Strangways, 2nd Earl of Ilchester, and his second wife Maria Digby, daughter of the Honourable William Digby. Henry Fox-Strangways, 3rd Earl of Ilchester, was his elder half-brother and John Fox-Strangways his younger brother. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, taking a BA in 1816 and an MA in 1820.
Political and diplomatical career
Fox-Strangways served as an attaché at the British embassies in St Petersburg, Constantinople, Naples and The Hague, as Secretary of Legation in Florence and Naples and as Secretary of Embassy in Vienna. In 1835 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Whig administration of Lord Melbourne, a post he held until 1840 (however, he was not a Member of Parliament during this time). The latter year he was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the German Confederation, which he remained until 1849. In 1858 he succeeded his half-brother as fourth Earl of Ilchester and entered the House of Lords.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1821.
Family
Lord Ilchester married Sophia Penelope Sheffield, daughter of Sir Robert Sheffield, 4th Baronet, in 1857. They had no children. He died in January 1865, aged 69, and was succeeded by his nephew Henry Edward Fox-Strangways. Between 1828 and 1834 Fox-Strangways donated 37 early Italian paintings to Christ Church. There they are still shown at the Christ Church Picture Gallery. "He also left a further 41 paintings to the Ashmolean, including Paolo Ucello's magnificent The Hunt", to be admired there.