Francis Stonor, 4th Baron Camoys


Francis Robert Stonor, 4th Baron Camoys was a British aristocrat who served as Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria.

Early life

Francis Robert Stonor was born on 9 December 1856 in Oxfordshire, England. He was the eldest son of The Hon. Francis Stonor, Senior Clerk of the House of Lords, and Eliza Stonor, who married in September 1855. His siblings included Hon. Sir Harry Julian Stonor, the Hon. Julia Caroline Stonor, and Maj. Hon. Edward Alexander Stonor.
His paternal grandparents were Thomas Stonor, 3rd Baron Camoys and the former Frances Towneley, a direct descendant of William Drummond, 4th Viscount Strathallan. His father, the second son, and uncle, the first son, both predeceased his grandfather. Another uncle was the Most Rev. Edmund Stonor, the Catholic Archbishop of Trapezus, and among his nine aunts was the Hon. Harriet Stonor, the wife of Leopold Agar-Ellis, 5th Viscount Clifden.
His mother was the youngest of seven children born to his maternal grandparents, British prime minister Sir Robert Peel and his wife, Julia Floyd. Among his mother's siblings were Julia Peel, Sir Robert Peel, 3rd Baronet, Sir Frederick Peel, Sir William Peel, and Arthur Wellesley Peel, 1st Viscount Peel.

Career

He gained the rank of Lieutenant in the Oxfordshire Yeomanry Cavalry. Upon the death of his paternal grandfather on 18 January 1881, he succeeded as the 4th Lord Camoys.
The fourth Baron was Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria in 1886 and again from 1892–1895.
An enthusiastic supporter of rowing, Lord Camoys served as steward of Henley Royal Regatta, and was closely connected with the Regatta Committee.

Personal life

On 14 September 1881, Lord Camoys married Jessie Philippa Carew in a Roman Catholic ceremony at St Mary of the Angels, Bayswater in London. Jessie was the daughter of Robert Russell Carew of Carew & Co., Ltd and the sister of Katherine Jane Carew and Helen Carew. In England, her father lived at Carpenders Park in Watford. They lived at Stonor Park, a 35 bedroom house in Oxfordshire, and were the parents of the following issue:
Lord Camoys died on Park Lane in Mayfair, London following an operation on 14 July 1897, and was buried
Stonor Park Cemetery in Oxfordshire. He was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son Ralph. After his death, his widow remarried to Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise on 3 September 1914.

Descendants

Through his eldest son, he was a grandfather of Ralph Robert Watts Sherman Stonor, who succeeded his father to the barony; the Hon. Pamela Sophia Nadine Stonor, who married Lt. Col. Charles Pepys in 1941; and the Hon. Mildred Sophia Noreen Stonor, who married John Rozet Drexel III in 1941, and was the mother of three children: Pamela Drexel, John Rozet Drexel IV, and Noreen Drexel.