Frederick Frankland

British, 1685 - 1768

BiographyFrederick Meinhart Frankland was born in or around 1685, the sixth of eight sons of Sir Thomas Frankland, 2nd Bart. (c.1665-1726), of Thirkleby, Yorkshire, and his wife Elizabeth Russell (c.1665-1733), granddaughter of Oliver Cromwell. After taking a degree at Jesus College, Cambridge, Frankland pursued a career in business and was called to the Middle Temple as a barrister-at-law in 1718. In 1729 he married Elizabeth Cardonnel Frankland, daughter of his former business partner, the London merchant René Baudouin (1650-1729). She had been twice widowed, first by Frankland's elder brother, William (1686-1714), and second by Adam Cardonnel (d. 1719), secretary to the Duke of Marlborough. She died on January 27, 1737, leaving him in charge of a daughter from her first marriage, and a son and daughter of their own. Toward the end of November 1738 Frankland's only son, Arthur, died. In February 1739 he married his second cousin, Lady Ann Lumley. Despite a friendship dating from their childhood, Frankland rapidly developed an antipathy to her and by June he had demanded a separation. She died the following February (1740), several days after the suicide of her brother, the 2nd Earl of Scarbrough. Frankland's professional life thrived despite his personal problems. He was appointed a director of the Bank of England in 1736, a position he held for two years. From 1734-49, he served as a Member of Parliament for his family's pocket borough of Thirsk, Yorkshire. He abandoned his seat in order to serve as commissioner of the revenues in Ireland from 1749 to 1753. He thereafter served as Commissioner of the Excise in England (1753-63). Of the six children born to Frankland, only one, Anne (1734-1813), survived to adulthood; she married Thomas Pelham (1728-1805), later 1st Earl of Chichester. A voluminous and affectionate correspondence with her father is preserved in the British Library. Following Frankland's death on March 8, 1768, his daughter and son-in-law erected a thirteen-foot monument in his memory on the grounds he had designed at their house, Stanmer Park, Sussex. Frankland's funeral was arranged by a Yorkshire neighbor, the influential cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale, for a price of £78.14.6

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