William Andreas Salicus Fane De Salis

William Andrew Salius Fane de Salis (27 October 1812 - 3 August 1896) was a businessman, colonialist, and barrister.

De Salis was the third son of Jerome, 4th Count de Salis-Soglio (d. 1836), by his third wife, Henrietta Foster (d. 1856). Peter John Fane, Count de Salis was an elder half-brother. William Foster Stawell was a first cousin, and the poet Lord De Tabley was a nephew.

Born in St. Marylebone, Westminster, brought up in County Louth he was educated at Eton (1824-27); Heidelberg University (1828-29); and Oriel College, Oxford (1830-1834, Classics, 4th class).

He was called to the Bar, 30 January 1836; and was at 3 Brick Court, Inner Temple, by 1840.The revising barrister in Northants (1839) and then Nottingham, he sailed to Australia in 1842, 1844 and 1848. He became, with John Thacker, a partner in Thacker & Co, Jardine Matheson’s affiliated house in Sydney, but resigned from 1 July 1847. By 1848 he owned with Robert Towns a 345 ton barque, the "Statesman". This they sold, March 1854, for $16,500, she having had an accident 'on her passage up to China from Sydney' trading sandalwood, tea pines...He was a director of the Union Bank of Australia; and in April 1849 he joined the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company. He was a director 1851-1895 and chairman 1878-1881.He was also a director of the Australian Agricultural Co (AAco) and its offshoot the Peel River Land and Mineral Co Ltd; from 1852 to 1874/80 he was deputy chairman and then chairman of the London Chartered Bank of Australia. Back in England he had joined the Grand Junction Canal Co in 1850.

In the 1850s he lived between the Jerusalem Coffee House; Dawley Lodge (near Hillingdon); 1, Upper Belgrave street; 24 Wilton street, and 107 Eaton square.

From the late 1850s he lived at Dawley Court, near Hillingdon, Middlesex and Teffont Manor, Teffont Evias, Wiltshire, home of his wife Emily Harriet (d 24 July 1896), eldest daughter of John T. Mayne, who he had married on 12 March 1859.

He was a Fellow of the Geological Society and of the Royal Geographical Society, JP for Middlesex, (1868), Lord of the Manor and Patron of the Living of Teffont, and JP for Wiltshire. He co-founded the Harlington, Hounslow and Cranford Cottage Hospital in 1884.

Works by W. Fane De Salis

* "Reminiscences of Travel in China and India in 1848", 1892 (private circulation).
* "Introductory Remarks to a Residence In Australia, And To Travels In China And India", (a short pamphlet).
* "Original Poems with Translations from the German of Schiller", (private circulation).

References

*"Quadrennial di Fano Saliceorum, volume one", by R. de Salis, London, 2003.
*"De Salis Family : English Branch", by Rachel Fane De Salis, Henley-on-Thames, 1934.
* "Burke's Irish Family Records", ed. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, Burke's Peerage Ltd, London, 1976.
* "Der Grafliche Hauser", Band XI [volume 11] , "Genealogisches Handbuch Des Adels", C. A. Starke Verlag, Limburg an der Lahn, 1983 (pps 331-356).
* Thomas Skinner, "The Directory of Directors 1880", London, 1880. (a list of directors of joint stock companies in the UK).

Ancestors