Lord Frederick FitzRoy
(1823-1919)
27 June 1861

Volume 4, page 143, sitting number 4642.

Born on 4 April 1823, Lord Frederick John FitzRoy was the third son of Henry FitzRoy, 5th Duke of Grafton, and Mary Caroline née Berkeley. 

Having initially enlisted in the Royal Navy, Lord FitzRoy joined the Army in 1843 and saw action with the Grenadier Guards during the Crimean war. Between 1863 and 1865 he was the Member of Parliament for Thetford in Norfolk.

On 27 October 1853 he married Catherine Sarah Wilhelmina Wescomb, daughter of Reverend William Wescomb, Rector of Langford in Essex. Numerous newspaper reports of the impending nuptials referred to the bride-to-be as 'a wealthy heiress' (Stamford Mercury, 2 September 1853; Leeds Intelligencer, 3 September 1853; Cork Examiner, 9 September 1853, to cite only a few).

Lady FitzRoy appears on the 1861 census, a 'Duke's son's wife' living at 23 Grosvenor Street in Mayfair with her daughter Ethel, aged 1, and son Evelyn, aged 4 months. Her husband was elsewhere the night the census was taken but her widowed mother Jane was visiting. Also present that night were 11 servants, including a butler, a footman, a lady's maid, a housekeeper, a nurse, a nursery maid and a wet nurse. 

Lord Frederick FitzRoy died, aged 95, on 12 February 1919, at Forest Farm, Balcombe, Sussex. He left an estate valued at £10,699.  

According to the Northampton Mercury (14 February 1919): 'His health was well preserved till quite recently, and he followed public questions closely, especially in Sussex, where he had long lived. Asked once what he considered to be the secret of health and happiness, he replied: "To have something to do AND TO DO IT."'