Stephen Fox-Strangways, 1st Earl of Ilchester PC (12 September 1704 – 26 September 1776) was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 peer and Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

.

Ilchester was the son of Sir Stephen Fox

Stephen Fox

Sir Stephen Fox was an English politician.-Life:Stephen Fox was the son of William Fox, of Farley, in Wiltshire, a yeoman farmer...

 and his second wife Christiana Hope. Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland

Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland

Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, of Foxley, MP, PC was a leading British politician of the 18th century. He identified primarily with the Whig faction...

, was his younger brother and Charles James Fox

Charles James Fox

Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...

 his nephew. He was elected to the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 for Shaftesbury

Shaftesbury (UK Parliament constituency)

Shaftesbury was a parliamentary constituency in Dorset. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1295 until 1832 and one member until the constituency was abolished in 1885....

 in 1726, a seat he held until 1741. The latter year he was raised to the peerage as Lord Ilchester, of Ilchester in the County of Somerset, Baron of Woodford Strangways in the County of Dorset. Six years later he was created Lord Ilchester and Stavordale, Baron of Redlynch, in the County of Somerset, and in 1756 he was even further honoured when he was made Earl of Ilchester. The peerages were created, in default of male issue of his own, with remainder to his younger brother Henry. In 1763 he was admitted to the Privy Council.

Stephen Fox was the lover of Lord Hervey for a period of ten years, from 1726 to 1736. There exist many passionate letters between the two. Hervey initially favored Stephen's brother, Henry Fox, but when charmingly rebuffed paid infatuated court to Stephen. His relationship with Lord Hervey ended only when a marriage was arranged with thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Horner, daughter of Thomas Strangways Horner and Susanna Strangways, in 1735. In 1758, Lord Ilchester assumed the additional surname of Strangways. He died in September 1776, aged 72, and was succeeded by his son Henry Thomas Fox-Strangways.

Lord Ilchester's children were:

• Lady Susannah Sarah Louisa Fox-Strangways, called Susan (1743-1827), married Irish actor William O'Brien
• Lady Christian Henrietta Caroline Fox-Strangways
  Harriet Acland
  Lady Harriet Acland was a British noblewoman, nurse and diarist.She was born Lady Christian Henrietta Caroline Fox-Strangways, the daughter of Stephen Fox-Strangways, 1st Earl of Ilchester, and married Major John Dyke Acland...
  
  , called Harriet (3 January 1749/50 – 21 July 1815), married Colonel John Dyke Acland
  John Dyke Acland
  Major John Dyke Acland , son of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 7th Baronet, was a British officer who fought in the American War of Independence and, later, a politician....
  
  
• Lady Frances Muriel Fox-Strangways (d. May 1814), married Valentine Richard Quin, 1st Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl
  Valentine Quin, 1st Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl
  Valentine Richard Quin, 1st Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, 1st Baronet was an Irish Peer.He had presumably chosen the title of ‘Dunraven’ in honour of his daughter-in-law, Caroline Wyndham, who had married his eldest son in 1810. His earldom lasted only two years and in 1824 his son, Windham...
  
  
• Lady Lucy Fox-Strangways (d. 16 August 1787), married Colonel Hon. Stephen Digby
• Henry Thomas Fox-Strangways, 2nd Earl of Ilchester
  Henry Fox-Strangways, 2nd Earl of Ilchester
  Henry Thomas Fox-Strangways, 2nd Earl of Ilchester , known as Lord Stavordale from 1756 to 1776, was a British peer and Member of Parliament....
  
  (9 August 1747 – 5 September 1802)
• Lt.-Col. Hon. Stephen Strangways Digby Fox-Strangways (3 December 1751 – 12 March 1836)
• Rev. Hon. Charles Redlynch Fox-Strangways (27 April 1761 – 4 November 1836), married Jane Haines

Sources

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.
• thePeerage.com
• Tillyard, Stella. "Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832"