Cecil Fane De Salis

Sir Cecil Fane de Salis, KCB, DL, JP, (born Fringford, 31 May 1857, died Wargrave 9 March 1948), of Dawley Court, Hillingdon, Uxbridge, Middlesex, was chairman of Middlesex County Council 1919–1924, and landowner in the parish of Harlington.

Biography

A nephew of William Fane de Salis and second of the four sons of Rev. Henry Jerome Fane De Salis of Portnall Park (the seventh son of Jerome, 4th Count de Salis-Soglio) he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He became a barrister (Inner Temple, called 1881). Later he was Middlesex's County Alderman; a long-standing member of Middlesex County Council; chairman and owner of market gardeners H. & A. Pullen Burry, Ltd. of Sompting, West Sussex; he was a director of the Dawley Wall Gravel Pit in the parish of Harlington; JP (Middlesex, 1896–1938), chairman of the bench 1921–1931; Deputy Lieutenant (Middlesex, from 1918); High Sheriff (Middlesex, 1905). In 1931 he became a companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) and was made a knight (KCB) of the same order in 1935.

During the First World War he sat for 449 days (from 25 February 1916) as one of the ten members of the Appeal Tribunal for the County of Middlesex, which he described: This was sad work and many hard cases had to be dealt with, and often decided against the appellant. He was vice-chairman (1912–1925) and then chairman (1925–1936) of the Middlesex Territorial and Auxiliary Force Association. Through Middlesex County Council he was closely associated with the mental hospitals at Harperbury and Shenley. He was also a governor of Uxbridge County School, aka the Bishopshalt School, now in Hillingdon.

He was a member of the Union Club (site now home to Canada House, Trafalgar Square).

Fourteen children

He married, on 3 September 1889, Rachel Elizabeth Frances Waller, (born Farmington, Gloucestershire, 1 January 1868; died Thornbury, Bristol, 6 January 1954), only child and heir of Edmund Waller VI or VII, and had 14 children, living firstly, 1889–1896, with his father at Portnall Park and then at Dawley Court.

• Henry Edmund Challoner (Harry), born Portnall, 17 July 1891; died Oxford, 20 September 1913
• Adela Lucy, born Portnall, 9 October 1893; died Portnall, 9 January 1894
• Edmund William, born Portnall, 31 December 1894; died Hampstead Marshall, 21 January 1980
• Jerome Joseph, born Portnall, 3 January 1896; died Lincoln, 3 October 1915
• John Peter, born Dawley, 15 April 1897; died Thornbury, 21 October 1973
• George Rodolph, born Dawley, 1 June 1898; died France, 21 June 1917
• Barbara Grace Victoria, born Dawley, 20 January 1900; died Johannesburg, November 1990
• Rev. Andrew Augustine, born Dawley, 17 January 1901; died 3 February 1962
• Grace Dorothea, born Dawley, 28 February 1902; died Earsham, Norfolk, 26 February 1977
• Stephen Hercules, born Dawley, 1 April 1903; died Hollycross, Crazies Hill, 18 September 1934
• Judith Anna, born Dawley, 10 June 1904; died Ditchingham, Norfolk, 10 February 1983
• Cecil Ulysses Octavius Fane, born Dawley, 26 October 1906; died Worthing, 29 March 1977
• Rachel Penelope, born Dawley, 14 April 1908; died Cheltenham, 14 December 1996
• Arthur Regester, born Dawley, 18 November 1911; died Droitwich, 24 March 2001

Land in Northern Ireland

The Belfast Gazette of 11 March 1927, records Cecil as having 18 parcels of land in county Armagh. These were at Dromart, Tandragee; Ballyworkan, Portadown; Tamnaghvelton; Tamnaghmore; and Brackagh, Portadown. These came to circa 140 acres and were valued at and compulsorily sold to the tenants for circa £2,000 in 1927.