| John FitzPatrick, 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory | |||||||||||
| Office1: | Member of Parliament for Bedfordshire | ||||||||||
| Term1: | 1767-1794 | ||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 2 May 1745 | ||||||||||
| Father: | John FitzPatrick | ||||||||||
| Relatives: | Richard FitzPatrick (brother) Mary FitzPatrick (sister) Louisa FitzPatrick (sister) Richard FitzPatrick (grandfather) John Leveson-Gower (grandfather) | ||||||||||
| Children: | 3+, including John | ||||||||||
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John FitzPatrick, 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory FRS DL (2 May 1745 – 13 February 1818), styled 'Lord Gowran' from 1751 to 1758, was an Irish peer and member of parliament.
John FitzPatrick was born on 2 May 1745, the son of John FitzPatrick, 1st Earl of Upper Ossory, and Lady Evelyn (née Leveson-Gower; daughter of John Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Gower). He had a younger brother Richard, who also became a noted statesman and soldier, and two younger sisters, Mary and Louisa.
He succeeded to his father's title of earl of Upper Ossory in 1758 but as this was a title in the Irish peerage it did not entitle him to a seat in the British House of Lords. In 1767 he was instead elected to the House of Commons for Bedfordshire, a seat he held until 1794.[1] He was also Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire from 1771 to 1818.[1] He had been appointed a captain in the Bedfordshire Militia when it was reformed in 1760 during the Seven Years' War, and assumed the colonelcy of the disembodied regiment when he became Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire. The regiment was embodied again for home defence during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary War. He gave up the colonelcy on 25 June 1795 while remaining lord lieutenant.[2]
In 1794, he was given the title of 'Baron Upper Ossory', of Ampthill in the County of Bedford, in the Peerage of Great Britain, which gave him a seat in the House of Lords.
In 1763, Fitzpatrick was in Italy with the bibliophile, Topham Beauclerk; where he bought old-master paintings and commissioned paintings from Gavin Hamilton.[3] His is also thought to have been a patron of John Higton, given his depiction of "Dogs at Ampthill Park" in 1810.
On returning to Britain, Fitzpatrick embarked on an affair with Anne Fitzroy, wife of Prime Minister Augustus Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, (and daughter of Henry Liddell, 1st Baron Ravensworth). This resulted in the Prime Minister having an affair with Anne Parsons, a courtesan, the birth of a child, the duchess's divorce and her marriage to FitzPatrick in 1769.[4] Like his younger brother Richard, Fitzpatrick was a friend of Charles James Fox, whilst their half-sister Mary FitzPatrick had married Charles James Fox's older brother Stephen Fox, 2nd Baron Holland. As such Fitzpatrick became a father figure to his nephew Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland on the death of his parents. He was also a noted friend to Horace Walpole; a large volume of correspondence between Walpole and Fitzpatrick's wife, the Countess of Upper Ossory survives.[5]
John Fitzpatrick died in February 1818, aged 72, when his titles became extinct. His natural son, John, succeeded to parts of his estates and was given the title of Baron Castletown in 1869; however on his death his estate was inherited by his step-son Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland - who also adopted Ampthill Park as his seat. Fermyn Woods Hall, inherited from his father, passed to his daughters.