Peerage details
suc. fa. 7 Dec. 1711 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. LEOMINSTER (LEMPSTER); cr. 27 Dec. 1721 earl of POMFRET (PONTEFRACT).
Sitting
First sat 9 Dec. 1719; last sat 13 Mar. 1753
Family and Education
b. 23 Mar. 1698, s. William Fermor, Bar. Leominster, and Sophia, da. Thomas Osborne, duke of Leeds. educ. Christ Church, Oxf. (MA 1717). m. (settlement 13 July 1720) Henrietta Louisa, da. John Jeffreys, 2nd Bar. Jeffreys, and Charlotte, da. Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke, 4s. (at least 2 d.v.p.), 6da. (1 d.v.p.).1 Collins, Peerage (1812 edn), iv. 206-7. KB 27 May 1725. d. 8 July 1753;2 Public Advertiser, 9 July 1753; Read’s Weekly Journal, 14 July 1753. will 23 Jan. 1752, pr. 20 July 1753.3 TNA, PROB 11/803.
Offices Held

Master of the horse to Queen Caroline, 1727 – 37.

Gov. of Guernsey, 1740–42;4 London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 11 July 1740. ranger, St James’s Park and Hyde Park, 1751–d.5 London Evening Post, 12–14 July 1753.

Col. regt. of dragoons, 1740.6 Daily Gazetteer (Country edition), 30 Jan. 1741.

Address
Associated with: Easton Neston, Northants. and New Bond St, Westminster.7Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal, 17 Oct. 1741.;
Likenesses

oil on canvas (with Henrietta, countess of Pontefract), by Thomas Bradwell, c. 1721, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

biography text

Leominster succeeded to the peerage while underage, though this did not prevent Sir Thomas Cave‡ from appealing to him to ‘take care of his side’ in the forthcoming elections in Buckinghamshire in the summer of 1713.8 Verney ms mic. M636/55, Sir T. Cave to Fermanagh, 30 Aug. 1713. He seems early on to have tended towards the Jacobites but a trip to Hanover was thought to have persuaded him ‘to have nothing more to say to them and never to believe what they said more’.9 Cheshire ALS, Cholmondeley mss, DCH/X/5. His conversion resulted in several marks of favour. He was promoted in the peerage under George I and was awarded significant household and local office under George II. His career will be considered more fully in the second part of this work.

Author
Eagles, Robin
Volume
Lords 1660-1715
Alternative Surnames
FARMER
Notes
  • 1. Collins, Peerage (1812 edn), iv. 206-7.
  • 2. Public Advertiser, 9 July 1753; Read’s Weekly Journal, 14 July 1753.
  • 3. TNA, PROB 11/803.
  • 4. London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 11 July 1740.
  • 5. London Evening Post, 12–14 July 1753.
  • 6. Daily Gazetteer (Country edition), 30 Jan. 1741.
  • 7. Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal, 17 Oct. 1741.;
  • 8. Verney ms mic. M636/55, Sir T. Cave to Fermanagh, 30 Aug. 1713.
  • 9. Cheshire ALS, Cholmondeley mss, DCH/X/5.