- Francis Basset, 1st Baron de Dunstanville and Basset
Francis Basset, 1st Baron de Dunstanville and Basset of Stratton (
9 August 1757 -14 February 1835 ) was an English nobleman and politician. He was the first son of Francis Basset and Margaret St. Aubyn (daughter of Sir John St Aubyn, 3rd Baronet).Life
He was baptised at Charlbury, Oxfordshire on 7 September 1757 and educated at
Harrow School (1770–71),Eton College (1771-74) andKing's College, Cambridge (1775). However, he left university for Italy in 1777, with the Revd. William Sandys as hiscicerone . He passed through Rome, where he had his portrait painted byPompeo Batoni (Batoni only finished it after Basset's departure, and - en route back to England on the "Westmorland" - it was seized by the French and sold to the Spanish). He returned to England in 1778, holding the office of Recorder of Penrhyn from that year onwards, and - like his father - being elected its Member of Parliament (between 1780 and 1796). The constituency returned two MPs, and one of his colleagues over that time was his cousin Sir John St Aubyn (son of Francis's mother's brother).Whilst serving as lieutenant-colonel of the North Devon militia, he marched Cornish miners to Plymouth, stengthened that town's defences and fortified
Portreath , all of which helped counter a Franco-Spanish invasion fleet (gathered as part of the European theatre of the American Revolutionary War). As a reward, he was made 1stBaronet Basset, ofTehidy , county Cornwall on24 November 1779 . He married Frances Susanna Coxe, daughter of John Hippesley Coxe, atSt Marylebone Parish Church on 16 May 1780, and finally graduated from King's College as a Master of Arts in 1786.He was made Baron de Dunstanville on
17 June 1796 , and then baron Basset on30 November 1797 . On his first wife's death, he remarried to Harriet Lemon (1777-1864, the fourth daughter of SirWilliam Lemon , first baronet, of Carclew, and Jane Buller) on13 July 1824 but, though she survived him, they had no children. Dying without surviving male issue, his baronetcy of Dunstanville became extinct and his baronetcy of Basset passed to his only child, Frances, his daughter by his first marriage.External links
* [http://www.thepeerage.com/p11702.htm#i117020 Francis Basset] on thePeerage.com
* [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1637?docPos=1 Francis Basset] - entry onDictionary of National Biography
* [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0007-6287(200107)143%3A1180%3C420%3ATPOFBB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S Maria Dolores Sanchez-Jauregui, 'Two Portraits of Francis Basset by Pompeo Batoni in Madrid'] , "The Burlington Magazine ", Vol. 143, No. 1180 (Jul., 2001), pp. 420-425
*Angus McLellan, 'Pirates of the Mediterranean - mining the cargo of the Westmorland in Madrid', "Trinity Today", December 2007, pages [http://www.trinity.unimelb.edu.au/publications/trinity_today/december2007/TrinityToday66December2007-14.pdf 14] to [http://www.trinity.unimelb.edu.au/publications/trinity_today/december2007/TrinityToday66December2007-15.pdf 15]
* [http://www.museum-security.org/99/032.html Giles Tremlett, 'Spaniards looted British art hoard'] , The Times, 1999
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