AN OBITUARY
Died, on the 31st May 1860, at Heytesbury House, in his 81st year, The Right-Honorable William, Lord Heytesbury.
His Lordship, the first Baron Heytesbury, was the second son of Sir W.P. Ashe A’Court, bart., by his second wife, the daughter of Henry Wyndham, Esq., of Salisbury.
He was born at Salisbury in 1779, and married in 1808 to the second daughter of the Hon. William H. Bouverie, and grand-daughter of the first Earl of Radnor, (she died in 1844).
He succeeded his father in the baronetcy in 1817.
The late peer was early engaged in diplomatic pursuits, having filled the office of Secretary of Legation at Naples, in July, 1801; he was secretary to the special embassy at Vienna, April 1807; Envoy-Extraordinary and Minister-Plenipotentiary to the Barbary States, Jan. 1813; was present in the same capacity at Naples, July 1814, and at Madrid, April 1822; he was ambassador at Lisbon from Sept. 1824 to April 1828, and at St. Petersburgh from April 1828 to August 1832; he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from July 1844 to July 1846, and was Governor and Captain of the Isle of Wight, and Governor of Carisbrooke Castle for many years; these appointments he resigned in 1857.
In 1835, under Sir R. Peel’s Administration, he was appointed Governor-General of India, but in consequence of the succession of Lord Melbourne to power before he left England, Lord Ackland superseded him.
He is succeeded in the title by his son, the Hon. William Henry Ashe A’Court Holmes, born in London in 1809, and married in 1833 to the eldest daughter of the late Sir Leonard W. Holmes, bart., whose name he assumed.
The present peer was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. in 1831. He was M.P. for the Isle of Wight from 1837 to 1847, and is a Deputy-Lieutenant of Hants and of Wiltshire.