Henry Fetherstonhaugh

{{Short description|English aristocrat}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Sir Henry Fetherstonhaugh, 2nd Baronet (22 December 1754 – 24 October 1846), known as Harry,{{cite web|url=http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/138269|title=Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, 2nd Bt (1754–1846), [painting by] Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787)|website=National Trust Collections, Uppark|access-date=15 May 2018}} was an English aristocrat.

Fetherstonhaugh as a boy, by [[Nathaniel Dance-Holland|thumb]]

File:Uppark-Sfront-01.jpg

The son of Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh {{post-nominals|country=GBR|Bt|MP|FRS}}, he was educated at Eton College and University College, Oxford.{{alox2|title=Fetherstonhaugh, (Sir) Henry (Bart.)}}

He made the Grand Tour in 1775-76 but passed most of it in sexual and hunting adventures. Like his parents and uncle 25 years earlier, he was painted by Pompeo Batoni in Rome, and later employed Humphry Repton to lay out the gardens to his country manor, Uppark.

He was the Member of Parliament for Portsmouth from 1782 to 1796,{{cite web|url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/fetherstonhaugh-sir-henry-1754-1846|access-date=14 May 2018|title=FETHERSTONHAUGH, Sir Henry, 2nd Bt. (1754-1846), of Uppark, Suss.|website=British Parliament Online}} but never once spoke in the House of Commons, and has been described as a "witless playboy".{{cite book|editor=Quintin Colville|title=Emma Hamilton: Seduction & Celebrity|url=https://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/books/emma-hamilton-seduction-and-celebrity-hardcover|date=2016|publisher=Thames & Hudson|location=London|isbn=9780500252208|page=59|chapter=1|access-date=8 May 2018|archive-date=5 June 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230605212508/https://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/books/emma-hamilton-seduction-and-celebrity-hardcover|url-status=dead}}

Sir Harry was a good friend of the Prince of Wales (later King George IV),{{cite web|url=https://georgianera.wordpress.com/tag/sir-henry-fetherstonhaugh/|title=A visit to Uppark House, Sussex|author=Sarah Murden|website=All things Georgian|date=10 October 2017 |access-date=14 May 2018}} who stayed at Uppark during the mid-1780s. He took the teenaged Emma Hamilton as a mistress to live with him at Uppark in 1780 and to entertain his guests at the many parties he hosted, but rejected her when she became pregnant with his child in 1781. A frequent guest at Uppark, Charles Greville, took her in as his mistress on condition that the child, Emma Carew, was fostered out.

On 12 September 1825, when over 70, Fetherstonhaugh married Mary Ann Bullock, his head dairy maid, aged 18{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Kate|title=England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton|edition=Large Print|publisher=BBC Audiobooks Ltd by arr. with Random House|year=2009|isbn=9781408430781}} or 21, and upon his death left his entire estate to her. After her husband's death Mary Ann continued living at Uppark with her sister, Frances (b. 1817).