Lords Fairfax of Cameron (1627)
1st Lord Fairfax, Thomas Fairfax, b.1560, a.1627, d.1640
The English family of Fairfax traces its ancestry back to Saxon times.
Thomas Fairfax was the son of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton, Sheriff of
Yorkshire, and served under Robert Devereaux, 2nd
Earl of Essex in the English Army. Essex was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I
and as a reliable supporter Fairfax was sent on various diplomatic missions on
her behalf to James VI of Scotland, on whom he made a good impression, before
serving as an MP, first for Lincoln from 1586 to 1587 then for Aldborough from 1588 to 1589 and from 1601 for Boroughbridge in Yorkshire. He was created 1st
Lord Fairfax of Cameron in the Peerage of Scotland by Charles I after failing
to win a seat in the 1625 election, and paying £1500 for the privilege. In the
one year of 1631, four of his sons died in various battles across Europe, two
at Frankenthal, one at La Rochelle and one in Turkey.
2nd Lord Fairfax, Ferdinando
Fairfax, b.1584, a.1640, d.1647-1648
Son of the 1st Lord and Ellen Aske
(b.?, d.1620). He served as MP for Boroughbridge from
1614 to 1629 and also during the Short Parliament of 1640. After succeeding to
his father’s Scottish peerage, he continued to sit in the House of Commons as
MP for Yorkshire until his death. He commanded a regiment of the King’s Army
during the First Bishop’s War in Scotland but when the Civil War erupted in
England in 1642 he led the Parliamentarian forces in Yorkshire. Initially,
however, he was on the receiving end, suffering reversals at Selby, Leeds and
most significantly at the Battle of Adwalton Moor,
after which he was forced back to Hull, which he successfully defended in late
1643 against the Marquess of Newcastle. With the Parliamentarians now on the
offensive he won at Selby and was joined by the Scottish Parliamentarian Army
during the siege of York before taking part in the Battle of Marston Moor. He left the army as part of the Self-denying
ordinance that forbade members of Parliament from taking active commands in the
military by stayed on as a member of the Committee for the Government of
Yorkshire until he was killed in an accident.
3rd Lord Fairfax, Thomas Fairfax, b.1612,
a.1647-1648, d.1671
Son of the 2nd Lord and Lady Mary Sheffield (b.?, d.1619),
daughter of Edmund Sheffield, 1st Earl of Musgrave. Born at Denton
(near Otley), he was educated at St John’s College
Cambridge and then fought in the Netherlands. Like his father, he first served
under Charles I, but at the outbreak of the Civil War served under his father
as Lieutenant-General of the Horse in the Parliamentarian Army of the North,
proving an effective cavalry officer, and performed well at the Battle of Marston Moor, after which the Marquess
of Newcastle fled England and York was taken. After the self-denying ordinances
that forced politicians out of the army, he was chosen as Lord General of the
New Model Army with Cromwell as his Lieutenant-General. After the Battle of Naseby, Fairfax arrived in London to celebrating crowds
while the King retreated from one capitulating garrison to another until
heading for Scotland. In 1647, the Scots handed Charles back to the English
Parliament and Fairfax met him at Nottingham. After the collapse of the
Royalists, Fairfax, as Lord General, had the unenviable task of negotiating
between the Army and Parliament, but such was the strength of feeling of his
officers that he could do little to stop them from taking the King into their
custody. More a soldier than a politician, he offered to resign but was
persuaded to remain in position, becoming in effect the leader of the army party.
By 1648, some elements of the Parliamentarians had had enough. The
Parliamentarian Governor of Pembroke Castle refused to had over command to the
Army and was joined by large numbers of soldiers mutinying over lack of pay,
and soon all of South Wales was in revolt, backed by support from the Scottish
Parliamentarians and Royalist uprisings elsewhere in England. Before long there
was a full scale Royalist revolt against the Parliamentarians, though many
Presbyterians refused to take arms for either side. The revolt was short-lived,
with the Scots heavily defeated at Preston by Cromwell, and soon the Army was
back in control, with even more power than before as many of the
Parliamentarians had by now settled their differences. Fairfax was still head
of the army and now sat on the judges’ panel during the trial of the King. When
it became obvious that the King’s death was the only outcome, he refused to
attend but also refused to act in the King’s defence. He resigned his
commission in 1650, leaving Cromwell as Captain-General to handle the Royalist
Scottish army that were backing Charles II. He lived in retirement until
Cromwell’s death, when he was asked by General George Monck
to join the English Army of occupation in Scotland against John Lambert’s
Parliamentarian army. His very appearance on Monck’s
side caused many defections and ultimately guaranteed the return of the
monarchy. After attending Charles II in London, he retired again to Yorkshire
where he could indulge in his love of literature. He had two daughters but no
sons, and the title passed to his cousin. There is no doubt that he benefited
from being aristocratic, but without an English title was acceptable to the
staunch anti-Catholic Parliamentarians, and had the military abilities to
impress the Republican faction within the army, allowing him to maintain a
precarious position of power during the upheavals of the Interregnum.
4th Lord Fairfax, Henry Fairfax, b.1631,
a.1671, d.1688
Grandson of the 1st Lord and son of the Reverend Henry
Fairfax (b.1587-1588, d.1665) and Mary Cholmley
(b.1603, d.1650), daughter of Sir Henry Cholmey of Roxby. He was the Tory MP for Yorkshire from 1679 to 1681.
5th Lord Fairfax, Thomas Fairfax, b.1657, a.1688, d.1709-1710
Son of the 4th Lord and Frances Barwick
(b.?, d.1683-1684). Educated at Magdalen College
Oxford, he was a supporter of the Revolution and was made Lieutenant-Colonel in
the 3rd Horse Guards in 1689, and reached the rank of
Brigadier-General in 1702. He was also MP for Yorkshire from 1689 to 1702 and
in 1707.
6th Lord Fairfax, Thomas Fairfax, b.1693, a.1709-1710, d.1781
Son of the 5th Lord and Catherine Colepeper
(b.?, d.1719), daughter of Thomas Colepeper, 2nd
Baron Colepeper of Thoresway.
He was born at Leeds Castle in Kent, home of his mother’s family, and was
educated at Oriel College Oxford before joining the
Royal Regiment of Horse Guards. In 1719 he inherited the vast Colepeper (or Culpeper) estates
in Virginia in the New World, including Shenandoah and the south branch of the
Potomac River. He discovered in 1732 that his agent in Virginia had accumulated
a huge wealth and rather than appoint another local, sent his cousin, William
Fairfax, there instead. He travelled to Virginia himself in 1735 and stayed
there for a couple of years. He returned in 1747 to stay and at the time was
the only resident peer in colonial America, and in 1748 met the young George
Washington, who was a distant relative, and Fairfax took him on as a surveyor.
Fairfax moved out to Shenandoah in 1752 and lived with his nephew Thomas Martin
in Clarke County. At the Revolution he was well treated even though he was a
loyalist, though his estates were confiscated over the course of the war.
7th Lord Fairfax, Robert Fairfax, b.1707, a.1781, d.1793
Younger brother of the 6th
Lord. He reached the rank of Major in the 1st Life Guards and was MP
for Maidstone from 1740 to 1741 and from 1747 to 1754. He received payment in
recompense for losing the family estates in Virginia during the War of
Independence.
8th Lord Fairfax, Bryan
Fairfax, b.1736, a.1793, d.1802
Great-grandson of the 4th
Lord, grandson of Henry Fairfax (b.1659, d.1708) and Anne Harison,
and son of William Fairfax (b.1691, d.1757) mentioned earlier and his second
wife Deborah Gedney. His parents emigrated to America
while he was very young and he was raised in Belvoir
on the west bank of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia, and became a
close childhood friend of the young George Washington, a distant cousin. He
began work as a clerk in 1754 for his brother-in-law John Carlyle and also
served in George Washington’s militia against the French. He then spent many
years running the family business interests until the American Revolution. Torn
between his loyalties to his mother country and his friends, he was allowed to
make his way to England, only to be refused passage on a British ship for not
being prepared to swear an oath of loyalty to the King. In 1789 he was ordained
a minister in the Episcopal Church. When the 7th Lord Fairfax died, he
was initially reluctant, but on a business trip to England in 1798 he submitted
his papers to the House of Lords and his claim was recognised. Always a good
friend to Washington, he was amongst one of the last people to visit him before
his death, and served as chief mourner at Washington’s funeral.
9th Lord Fairfax, Thomas
Fairfax, b.1762, a.1802, d.1846
Son of the 8th Lord and
Elizabeth Cary (b.?, d.1778). Other than living as a country gentleman and
overseeing his estates, he was a follower of the unorthodox theologian Emanuel Swedenborg and voluntarily freed his slaves, trained them
and sent them back to Africa.
10th Lord Fairfax, Charles
Snowden Fairfax, b.1829, a.1846, d.1869
Grandson of the 9th Lord and
Margaret Herbert, and son of Albert Fairfax (b.1802, d.1835) and Caroline Eliza
Snowden (b.?, d.1899). Born on the family estate at Vaucluse
in Virginia, he never claimed his title, preferring to live as an American
citizen. In 1850 he travelled west to San Francisco during the Gold Rush and
spent some time prospecting. In 1851 he abandoned this for the cleaner and less
taxing world of politics and represented Yuba County in the Californian State
Assembly from 1853 to 1855. He then became Clerk to the Supreme Court of
California. He was given an estate in Marin County by a friend as a wedding
gift and the town that grew up was eventually named Fairfax. He died suddenly
in Baltimore, Maryland, while on official business as part of a Californian
state delegation to the Democratic National Convention and was buried in Rock
Creek Cemetery in Washington DC.
11th Lord Fairfax, John Contee Fairfax, b.1830, a.1869, d.1900
Younger brother of the 10th
Lord. Born on Vaucluse plantantion,
he remained on the east coast all his life and died at his home in Prince
George’s County, Maryland.
12th Lord Fairfax, Albert
Kirby Fairfax, b.1870, a.1900, d.1939
Son of the 11th Lord and Mary
Brown Kirby (b.?, d.1912). He was identified by researchers as the rightful 12th
Lord although his family had long since forgotten or ignored the situation, and
pursued recognition of his claim in the House of Lords, which was accepted in
1908. He was naturalised as a British citizen and served as a Representative
Peer from 1917 to his death.
13th Lord Fairfax, Thomas
Brian McKelvie Fairfax, b.1923, a.1939, d.1964
Son of the 12th Lord and Maud
Wishart McKelvie (b.?,
d.1973). He was educated at Eton and then served in the Coldstream
Guards. He was a Representative Peer from 1945 to 1958. He was Parliamentary
Private Secretary to the Lord President of the Council from 1951 to 1953 and
was a Lord-in-Waiting from 1954 to 1957.
14th Lord Fairfax, Nicholas
John Albert Fairfax, b.1956, a.1964
Son of the 13th Lord and
Sonia Helen Gunston (a grand-daughter of Terence
Hamilton-Temple Blackwood, 2nd Marquess of
Dufferin and Ava). He was
educated at Eton and Downing College Cambridge and was admitted to the Bar in
1977. He has served as a Director of various companies.
The traditional courtesy title for the heir
in Scotland would have been Master of Fairfax, but since the family were
English this was never used.
(Last updated: 16/06/2010)