Francis Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford


Francis Charles Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford, , styled Viscount Beauchamp between 1793 and 1794 and Earl of Yarmouth between 1794 and 1822, was a British Tory politician and art collector.

Background

Seymour-Conway was the son of Francis Seymour-Conway, 2nd Marquess of Hertford, by his second wife Isabella Anne Ingram, daughter of Charles Ingram, 9th Viscount of Irvine.

Political career

Lord Yarmouth sat as Member of Parliament for Orford from 1797 to 1802, for Lisburn from 1802 to 1812, for Antrim from 1812 to 1818 and for Camelford from 1820 to 1822. In March 1812 he was sworn of the Privy Council and appointed Vice-Chamberlain of the Household under Spencer Perceval. He continued in the post after Lord Liverpool became prime minister in May 1812 after Perceval's assassination, but relinquished it in July of that year. The same year he was appointed Lord Warden of the Stannaries, a post he held until his death. He succeeded his father in the marquessate in 1822. The same year he was also made a Knight of the Garter and appointed Vice-Admiral of Suffolk, a post he retained until his death.
Lord Hertford was also a considerable art collector, as were his son and grandson; many of his pictures are in the Wallace Collection which they founded.

Cricket

Seymour-Conway was an amateur cricketer who made three known appearances in first-class cricket matches from 1797 to 1799. He was mainly associated with Surrey and was a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club.
He died in March 1842, aged 64, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Richard. The Marchioness of Hertford died in March 1856, aged 84.

Family

Lord Hertford married Maria Emilia Fagnani, reputedly the illegitimate daughter of the 4th Duke of Queensberry and a married Italian aristocrat, the Marchesa Fagnani, on 18 May 1798. They had three children:
Lord Hertford was the prototype for the characters of the Marquess of Monmouth in Benjamin Disraeli's 1844 novel Coningsby and Lord Steyne in William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847–8 serial Vanity Fair. Thackeray's illustration of the Marquis for issue 11 was considered to bear such a resemblance to Hertford that threat of prosecution for libel effectively suppressed its publication. In Hertford's last years, he was said to live with a retinue of prostitutes and the mental instability which afflicted several members of his family became noticeable. Charles Greville described him as broken with infirmities and unable to speak due to paralysis of the tongue and claimed "there has been, so far as I know, no such example of undisguised debauchery".