Author: A'Court, William
Biography:
A’ COURT, William (1779-1860: ODNB)
He was the eldest son of Sir William Pierce Ashe A’Court, of Heytesbury House in Wiltshire and MP for Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, and his second wife Letitia Wyndham of Salisbury. He was born on 11 July 1779 in the Cathedral Close in Salisbury and attended Eton College. His career as one of the most able diplomats of his generation began in 1801 with service in Palermo and Naples. In 1807 he was made secretary to the Earl of Pembroke’s special mission to Vienna during the Napoleonic wars. He was subsequently appointed first commissioner for affairs in Malta (1812), envoy-extraordinary to the Barbary states (1813), minister plenipotentiary in Naples (1814), envoy-extraordinary to Spain (1822), ambassador to Poland (1824), and ambassador to Russia (1828). His last major government post was as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland (1844-46) during Sir Robert Peel’s administration when he warned the government of the scale of the famine gripping the country. A’Court married Maria Rebecca Bouverie at St. George’s, Hanover Square in London, on 3 Oct. 1808; they had two sons and one daughter. In 1817, on his father’s death, he inherited the baronetcy; he became a privy councillor in the same year. In 1828 he was created Baron Heytesbury. He died at Heytesbury House on 31 May 1860; he is buried in the family mausoleum in the churchyard of St. Peter and St. Paul in Heytesbury. His Montalto was reissued with some poems in 1840. (ODNB 30 Sept. 2022; ancestry.co.uk 30 Sept. 2022)