Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood

Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood (1713 – 25 January 1795) was a wealthy West Indian plantation owner and enslaver who was of English ancestry.

Not to be confused with Edwin Lascelles (MP), MP for Ripon from 1846-1857.

Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood

Early life

He was born in Barbados, the elder son of Henry Lascelles (1690–1753) and Mary Carter. His father split the family fortune, leaving Edwin's younger brother Daniel as head of the business, and raised Edwin as a lord of the manor over their English estates. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge,[1] and on a European Grand Tour.

Military and political service

He fought against the Jacobites (1745), and entered Parliament as MP for Scarborough from 1744 to 1754. He was later MP for Yorkshire from 1761 to 1780 and for Northallerton from 1780 to 1790 (inheriting the latter seat from his father Henry and his brother Daniel). By 1748 Edwin was installed as Lord of the Manor of Harewood and he built Harewood House from 1759 to 1771.

On Daniel's death childless in 1784 and their only other sibling Henry's death two years later, Edwin was left in sole charge of the fortune, to which he added 22 working plantations, more than 27,000 acres (110 km2) of West Indian property and 2,947 enslaved people surrendered to planters' creditors as the planters defaulted on debts because of the American War of Independence, worth £293,000 (about £28.3 million today). A great many enslavers depended on their sale of sugar and molasses to the American colonies for income.

He was made Baron Harewood, of Harewood in the County of York on 9 July 1790,[2] but died childless and the title became extinct. The fortune passed to his cousin Edward Lascelles (1740–1820), 1st Earl of Harewood.

Marriages

He was first married to Elizabeth Dawes, daughter of Sir Darcy Dawes, 4th Baronet, on 5 January 1746–47. His second marriage was to Lady Jane Fleming, daughter of William Coleman and Jane Seymour, and widow of Sir John Fleming, 1st Baronet, in 31 March 1770. His stepdaughters were Jane Stanhope, Countess of Harrington and Seymour Fleming, later noted for the separation scandal involving her husband Sir Richard Worsley, 7th Baronet. A picture of Seymour still hangs in Harewood House.

References
  1. "Lascelles, Edwin (LSCS731E)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  2. "No. 13210". The London Gazette. 15 June 1790. p. 373.
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