William Fermor, 1st Baron Leominster
William Fermor, 1st Baron Leominster, by Godfrey Kneller
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| Personal details | |
| Born | 3 August 1648 |
| Died | December 7, 1711 (aged 63) |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Known for | Construction of Easton Neston |
William Fermor, 1st Baron Leominster (alias Lempster) (3 August 1648 – 7 December 1711), styled Sir William Fermor, 2nd Baronet from 1661 to 1692, was an English politician and peer.
Fermor was the second but eldest surviving son of Sir William Fermor, 1st Baronet (1621-1661) (alias Farmer), of Easton Neston, Northamptonshire, by his wife Mary Perry, widow of Henry Noel, second son of Edward Noel, 2nd Viscount Campden and a daughter of Hugh Perry of the City of London.
Fermor was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. He succeeded as second baronet in 1661, was elected a Member of Parliament for Northampton in 1671 and again in 1679.
He was elevated to the peerage on 12 April 1692, as Baron Leominster (alias Lempster) of Leominster, Herefordshire.
Leominster re-built the mansion house at Easton Neston and planned the gardens and plantations, the wings being to the design of Sir Christopher Wren with the house completed 20 years later in 1702 to the design of Nicholas Hawksmoor. He adorned the whole with part of the Arundel marbles which he had purchased and which his son attempted to restore with the assistance of the Italian sculptor Giovanni Battista Guelfi, a scholar of Camillo Rusconi. The collection was afterwards greatly neglected. Horace Walpole wrote as follows to George Montagu on 20 May 1736: "Coming back, we saw Easton Neston, where in an old greenhouse is a wonderful fine statue of Tully haranguing a numerous assembly of decayed emperors, vestal virgins with new noses, Colossus's, Venus's, headless carcases, and carcaseless heads, pieces of tombs, and hieroglyphics." The marbles were presented in 1755 to the University of Oxford by Henrietta Louisa, Countess of Pomfret. A description of Easton Neston and its art treasures is included in the Catalogue of the Duke of Buckingham's Pictures.
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