Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Most Honourable Order of The Bath, C.B. (Military) Commander’s Chapel Stall Plate, gilded brass with engraved and painted badge of a companion, inscribed ‘John Fane Esquire, commonly called Lord Burghersh, Colonel in the Army, Companion of the Most Honourable Military Order of the Bath. Nominated 4th June 1815’, 190x115mm, very fine £300-400

John Fane, Lord Burghersh, later 11th Earl of Westmoreland, was born in London in 1784, only son of the 10th Earl of Westmoreland (1759-1841). Styled Lord Burghersh until 1841, he was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge (M.A. 1808, LL.D. 1814). Appointed Lieutenant, 7th Foot, January 1804; Captain, May 1805; Captain, 3rd Dragoon Guards, November 1805; Major, half-pay 91st Foot, December 1810; Lieutenant-Colonel, 63rd Foot, December 1811; Colonel in the Army, June 1814. Lord Burghersh served with the army in Spain and Portugal, and in 1809 was an Extra Aide-deCamp to the Duke of Wellington. He subsequently served in a diplomatic capacity and as a Military Correspondent with the Austrian Army in Germany and France in 1813-14. Appointed Knight of Maria Theresa in June 1814, he was envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Florence, August 1814, to Parma and Modena, and to Lucca, February 1818. He was made C.B. in June 1815, and G.C.H. in April 1817, and also held the Grand Crosses of St Ferdinand of Merit, and of St Joseph of Tuscany. He was advanced to K.C.B. in February 1838, and to G.C.B. in June 1846. Promoted to General in June 1854, he was sent on a special mission to Brussels in July 1856. He composed seven operas and much other music and founded the Royal Academy of Music which opened in March 1823. He was also the author of several books on military history, including ‘Memoirs of the early campaigns of the duke of Wellington in Portugal and Spain’, published in 1820. He succeeded his father as the 11th Earl of Westmoreland in 1841, and died at Apthorpe House, Northamptonshire, on 16 October 1859.