William à Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury

Heytesbury was the eldest son of Sir William à Court, 1st Baronet, and Laetitia, daughter of Henry Wyndham. He was educated at Eton and entered the Diplomatic Service at an early age.

In 1812 Heytesbury was elected to the House of Commons for Dorchester, a seat he held until 1814. He was also Envoy Extraordinary to the Barbary States from 1813 to 1814, to the Kingdom of Naples in 1814 and to Spain from 1822 to 1824 and served as Ambassador to Portugal between 1824 and 1828.

File:Lord Heytesbury by Brian Searby (Middleton Album).jpg

The latter year Heytesbury was appointed Ambassador to Russia, where he had to deal with the Russo-Turkish War of 1828 to 1829 and the tensions created by the Russian Empire's occupation of the Danubian Principalities.Florescu, Radu R. (2021), The Struggle Against Russia in the Romanian Principalities, Histra Books, Las Vegas, pp. 170, 190, 191, 275 & 323, {{isbn|9781592110261}} He remained in Russia until 1832. In 1835 Sir Robert Peel nominated him for the office of Governor-General of India, but the Tory government soon fell and he never took up the post. However, he later served under Peel as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland from 1844 to 1846, and presided over the beginning of the Great Famine (Ireland). Heytesbury succeeded his father as second Baronet in 1817, was admitted to the Privy Council the same year and made a GCB in 1819. In 1828 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Heytesbury, of Heytesbury in the County of Wiltshire.

Lord Heytesbury married Maria Rebecca, daughter of the Hon. William Henry Bouverie, in 1808. They had four sons and two daughters. He died in May 1860, aged 80, and was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son William.

{{Emblem table

| name = William à Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury{{cite book |year=1838 |title=The genealogy of the existing British peerage ... |author=Edmund Lodge |edition=6th | page=248}}

| image = Coat of arms of William à Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury.svg

| imagesize = 250px

| crest = An eagle displayed sable charged on the body with two chevronels or and holding in the beak a lily slipped proper.

| escutcheon = Per fess or and paly of six erminois and azure, in chief an eagle displayed sable, beaked and membered gules, charged on the body with two chevronels argent.

| supporters = Two eagles, wings elevated and displayed sable, beaked and membered gules, each holding in the beak a lily slipped proper.

| motto = Grandescunt aucta labore (Increased by labour, they grow large)

| orders = Order of the Bath - Knight Grand Cross (GCB)

}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite DNB|wstitle=Heytesbury, William A'Court|volume=26}}
• {{cite book | editor-last=Kidd | editor-first= Charles | editor-last2= Williamson | editor-first2= David | title=Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage | location=London and New York | publisher= St Martin's Press | date=1990}}
• Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 107th edn., (London, 2003)
• Debrett's Peerage (London, 2002)
• {{citation|url= http://www.leighrayment.com/peers/peersH3.htm |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080608023714/http://www.leighrayment.com/peers/peersH3.htm |archive-date= 8 June 2008 | title= William A Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury |url-status= usurped | accessdate= 22 December 2016 }}

• {{UK National Archives ID}}

{{S-start}}

{{s-par|uk}}

{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for Dorchester
2 seat constituency
(with Robert Williams)

| years = 1812–1814

| before = Charles Henry Bouverie
Robert Williams

| after = Robert Williams
Sir Samuel Shepherd

}}

{{s-dip}}

{{succession box|title=British Ambassador to Spain|before=Henry Wellesley|after=Frederick Lamb|years=1822–1825}}

{{succession box | title=British Ambassador to Portugal | before= Sir Edward Thornton | years= 1824–1827 | after= Hon. Sir Frederick Lamb }}

{{succession box | title=British Ambassador to Russia | before=The Viscount Strangford | years= 1828–1832 | after=Sir Stratford Canning}}

{{s-off}}

{{succession box | before=The Earl de Grey | title=Lord Lieutenant of Ireland | years=1844–1846 | after=The Earl of Bessborough}}

{{s-hon}}

{{succession box | before=The Earl of Malmesbury | title=Governor of the Isle of Wight | years=1841–1857 | after=The Viscount Eversley}}

{{s-reg|uk}}

{{s-new | creation}}

{{s-ttl | title=Baron Heytesbury | years=1828–1860}}

{{s-aft | after=William à Court-Holmes}}

{{s-reg|gb-bt}}

{{succession box | title=Baronet
(of Heytesbury) | years=1817–1860 | before=William à Court | after=William à Court-Holmes}}

{{S-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heytesbury, William a Court, 1st Baron}}

Category:1779 births

Category:1860 deaths

Category:People educated at Eton College

2

Category:Barons Heytesbury

William

Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Dorchester

Category:Lords Lieutenant of Ireland

Category:Tory MPs (pre-1834)

A Court, William

Category:UK MPs who were granted peerages

Category:Diplomatic peers

Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Spain

Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to the Russian Empire

Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Portugal

Category:Ambassadors to the Kingdom of Naples

Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

Category:Peers of the United Kingdom created by George IV