Coulson Fellowes

He was the eldest son of the barrister William Fellowes and his wife Mary Martyn; his maternal grandmother was Susannah Coulson, sister of Thomas Coulson. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford in 1716. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1723.{{alox2|title=Fellowes, Coulson}}

Fellowes was on a Grand Tour in France and Italy from 1723 to 1725. He was at Rome in 1724 with Conyers Middleton, and travelled on towards Venice with Middleton and John Folliot.{{cite book |last1=Ingamells |first1=John |title=A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800 |date=1997 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-07165-8 |page=351 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7Z0_EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA351 |language=en}} His father died 15 January 1724, and he succeeded as his main heir. He inherited the manor of Eggesford in Devon.{{cite book |last1=Foyster |first1=Elizabeth |title=The Trials of the King of Hampshire: Madness, Secrecy and Betrayal in Georgian England |date=8 September 2016 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-78074-961-7 |page=29 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zB29DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT29 |language=en}} He made a mortgage loan to the Duke of Chandos in 1725.{{cite journal |last1=Dickson |first1=P. G. M. |last2=Beckett |first2=J. V. |title=The Finances of the Dukes of Chandos: Aristocratic Inheritance, Marriage, and Debt in Eighteenth-Century England |journal=Huntington Library Quarterly |date=2001 |volume=64 |issue=3/4 |page=327 note 60 |doi=10.2307/3817916 |jstor=3817916 |pmid=18702182 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3817916 |issn=0018-7895|url-access=subscription }}

Coming to own two landed estates, Fellowes resided in Hampstead.{{cite book |last1=Foyster |first1=Elizabeth |title=The Trials of the King of Hampshire: Madness, Secrecy and Betrayal in Georgian England |date=8 September 2016 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-78074-961-7 |page=34 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zB29DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT34 |language=en}} Habakkuk commented on his large investments held in the Funds.{{cite book |last1=Habakkuk |first1=H. J. |title=Marriage, Debt, and the Estates System: English Landownership, 1650-1950 |date=1994 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-820398-8 |page=576 |language=en}}

In 1737 Fellowes bought Ramsey Abbey, then in the county of Huntingdonshire. Silius Titus had bought it in 1675 from the heirs of Sir Henry Williams, 2nd Baronet; and Fellowes bought it from the family of Titus, who died in 1704.{{cite web |title=Titus, Silius (c.1623-1704), of Bushey, Herts. and Ramsey Abbey, Hunts. History of Parliament Online |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/titus-silius-1623-1704 |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}}{{cite book |title=The Monthly Critical Gazette |date=1825 |publisher=Knight and Lacey |page=119 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9WVGAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA119 |language=en}}

File:Ramsey Abbey 1730 Buck.jpg, 1730 engraving]]

On his death, Fellowes left money to Addenbrookes Hospital.{{cite book |last1=Addenbrooke's Hospital |title=The State of Addenbrooke's Hospital ... for the Year Ending at Michaelmas 1804 |date=1804 |page=3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gVdpAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA3 |language=en}}

Fellowes was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdonshire in 1741, having support in the two-member constituency from John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, in the group of followers of the Whig John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford. He with William Mitchell kept out Charles Clarke, backed by Robert Montagu, 3rd Duke of Manchester.{{cite web |title=Huntingdonshire 1715-1754, History of Parliament Online |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/constituencies/huntingdonshire |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}} In this time of the decline of Sir Robert Walpole's ascendency, he was classed as an Opposition Whig. He continued to oppose, from 1744, the Broad Bottom ministry in which Sandwich took office. Nonetheless, he retained Sandwich's support. He was returned again at the 1747 general election, with Edward Wortley Montagu. When John Jones published his 1749 book in liturgical reform in the Church of England, Fellowes was in the select group of political figures he thought might take an interest, with Lord Lonsdale, Arthur Onslow, and James West.{{cite book |last1=Robbins |first1=Caroline |title=The Eighteenth-century Commonwealthman: Studies in the Transmission, Development and Circumstance of English Liberal Thought from the Restoration of Charles II Until the War with the Thirteen Colonies |date=1968 |publisher=Atheneum |page=300 |language=en}} A character sketch by Jones of Fellowes was published by John Nichols in his Literary Anecdotes.{{cite web |title=Fellowes, Coulson (1696-1769), of Ramsey Abbey, Hunts. History of Parliament Online |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/fellowes-coulson-1696-1769|website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}}

In 1754 Fellowes was re-elected, with John Proby of Elton Hall, the Montagu backers keeping out with the next generation not yet being of age.{{cite web |title=Huntingdonshire 1754-1790, History of Parliament Online |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/constituencies/huntingdonshire |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}} Sandwich floated the idea of Proby standing with William Montagu, his brother, but it was dropped when Fellowes demurred. At the 1761 general election, however, George Montagu was elected with Proby, under a local electoral deal, and Fellowes ended his time in parliament.

Conyers married in 1725 Urania Herbert. She was sister to Henry Herbert, and daughter of Francis Herbert of Oakly Park, Member of Parliament for Ludlow.{{cite web |title=Herbert, Francis (?1666-1719), of Oakley Park, Mont. History of Parliament Online |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/herbert-francis-1666-1719 |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}} They had two sons and three daughters.

• The elder son was William Fellowes (c.1726–1804), Member of Parliament for Ludlow and Andover. He married in 1768 Lavinia Smyth;{{cite book |last1=Burke |first1=Bernard |title=A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland |date=1879 |publisher=Harrison |page=551 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R3YyY91Uqi0C&pg=PA551 |language=en}}{{cite web |title=Fellowes, William (1726? - 1804), of Ramsey Abbey, Hunts. History of Parliament Online |url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/fellowes-william-1726-1804 |website=historyofparliamentonline.org}} she was a sister of Margaret Bingham.{{cite web |title=Fellowes William Henry (1769-1837), of Ramsey Abbey, Hunts. and Haverland Hall, Norf. History of Parliament Online |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/fellowes-william-1769-1837 |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}}{{cite book |last1=Cokayne |first1=George Edward |title=Complete Baronetage |date=1900 |publisher=W. Pollard & Co. |location=Exeter |page=399|volume=III |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924092524382/page/399/mode/1up}} William Henry Fellowes (died 1792), their eldest son, was a Member of Parliament.
• Henry Arthur Fellowes, the younger son, inherited the Eggesford estate, and was High Sheriff of Devon in 1775. He left Eggesford to Newton Fellowes, his nephew;{{cite book |last1=Burke |first1=Bernard |title=A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland |date=1879 |publisher=Harrison |page=551|volume=I |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R3YyY91Uqi0C&pg=PA551 |language=en}} who rebuilt Eggesford House on a new site, in "Tudor embattled style'', in 1822.{{cite web |title=Eggesford House, Devon Gardens Trust |url=https://www.devongardenstrust.org.uk/gardens/eggesford-house |website=www.devongardenstrust.org.uk}}

File:EggesfordSwete99.jpg]]

• Their daughter Urania married in 1763 John Wallop, later 2nd Earl of Portsmouth.{{cite book |title=Debrett's Genealogical Peerage of Great Britain and Ireland |date=1847 |publisher=William Pickering |page=605 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m19HAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA605 |language=en}}

The other daughters of the marriage were Mary and Dorothea. Dorothea who died in 1817 was confined from 1791 for the rest of her life in a private asylum, Fisher House in Islington under Samuel Foart Simmons, by a family group of her brothers, her sister Urania and Robert Fellowes.{{cite journal |last1=Jamieson |first1=Anna |title="Comforts in Her Calamity": Shopping and Consumption in the Late Eighteenth-Century Private Madhouse |journal=Eighteenth-Century Studies |date=2021 |volume=55 |issue=1 |pages=83–102 |doi=10.1353/ecs.2021.0103 |s2cid=244607213 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/813536 |issn=1086-315X|doi-access=free |url-access=subscription }}

In 1720 Fellowes acted as executor of a will of an unmarried cousin, Elizabeth Pett of Carshalton, who had died that year. She was the daughter of Elizabeth Coulson, sister of Susannah Coulson, who had married, as her second husband, Sir Phineas Pett (died 1694) of the Pett dynasty of shipwrights: she was his third wife. She had previously been married to John Tarleton.{{cite book |title=The Ancestor : a quarterly review of county and family history, heraldry and antiquities .. |date=1904 |publisher=Constable |location=London |pages=165–167 |url=https://archive.org/details/ancestorquarterl10unse/page/165/mode/1up}}

The Norfolk Record Office has an archive of Fellowes family records. A "File of receipts to Edward Fellowes for annuities under will of Sir John Fellowes" shows that his uncle Edward dealt with Coulson Fellowes over the estate of his uncle Sir John Fellowes, 1st Baronet, who died in 1724, and for whom Edward (died 1731) acted as executor, and was principal legatee.{{cite web |title=File of receipts to Edward Fellowes for annuities under will of Sir John Fellowes. - Norfolk Record Office Online Catalogue |url=https://nrocatalogue.norfolk.gov.uk/index.php/file-of-receipts-to-edward-fellowes-for-annuities-under-will-of-sir-john-fellowes |website=nrocatalogue.norfolk.gov.uk}}{{cite book |last1=Surrey Archaeological Society |first1=Guilford |title=Surrey archaeological collections, relating to the history and antiquities of the county |date=1913 |publisher=London, etc |page=113 |url=https://archive.org/details/surreyarchaeolog26surr/page/113/mode/1up}}{{cite book |last1=Crisp |first1=Frederick Arthur |title=Visitation of England and Wales |date=1909 |publisher=Priv. printed |location=London|volume=8 Notes |page=57 |url=https://archive.org/details/visitationofengl29howa/page/57/mode/1up}} Other archival records show that the Carshalton manor house passed from Sir John Fellowes to Edward Fellowes and Coulson Fellowes.{{cite web |title=Copy of release |url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/e1e62f84-db5d-4fd6-9620-d5743796bb2d |website=TNA |language=English |date=7 December 1816}} Work was done there on the Water Tower around 1721, thought to be by the architect Henry Joynes. "The early C18 double-fold carriage gates (listed grade II) are hung from a pair of gate piers with crowned lions' heads from the Fellowes' coat of arms."{{cite web |last1=Parks and Gardens |title=Carshalton House - Sutton |url=https://www.parksandgardens.org/places/carshalton-house |website=Parks & Gardens |language=en |date=31 December 1749}} The property then passed to Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke.

{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fellowes, Coulson}}

Category:1696 births

Category:1769 deaths

Category:Members of the Parliament of Great Britain

Category:English landowners

Coulson

Category:High sheriffs of Devon