Leopold Fane De Salis

Leopold Fabius Dietegen Fane de Salis, (26 April 1816 – 20 November 1898) was a Tuscan-born Australian pastoralist and politician.^[1][2]

Count Leo in 1893.^[3]

His wife Charlotte.

Charlotte MacDonald (d.1878).

Born in Florence to Jerome, 4th Count de Salis-Soglio and Henrietta Foster,^[4] he attended Eton College and studied sheep farming at Jedburgh in Scotland. In 1840 he migrated to Sydney, where he formed a partnership to run a station at Junee. In the same decade, in 1842, 1844 and 1848, his highly capable next elder brother William also sailed to Australia. They did much business together.

In 1844 he married Charlotte Macdonald, with whom he had four children, two of whom (George and Leopold) would later become politicians themselves. In 1855 he sold out and bought the Cuppacumbalong station at Tharwa, later purchasing further property on the Murrumbidgee River. In 1864 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for Queanbeyan, but he did not re-contest in 1869. In 1872 he was appointed to the New South Wales Legislative Council. Around this time he also acquired property in Queensland, all of which he lost in the 1890s depression. His daughter Nina married William Farrer in 1882 and they lived at Lambrigg, Tharwa, a property given them by De Salis. In 1898 he left the Council bankrupt with significant debts. He died at Tharwa later that year.^[5]

Count Leopold, his wife and children, circa 1870.

Gum trees and staffage, a De Salis photo, circa 1880.

Leopold in an Australian garden, Cuppacumbalong or Lambrigg (?), circa 1890.

One of the sons or grandsons of Count Leopold, on his wedding day in 1878, 1884, 1895 or 1923.

References

1. A genealogical and heraldic History of the Colonial Gentry, by Sir (John) Bernard Burke, CB, LLD, vol. 2, London, 1895/1899 (pages 574–77).
2. Burke's Peerage, Foreign Noblemen / Foreign Titles sections: 1851, 1936, 1956, etc.
3. He came to England in 1893, particularly to settle his affairs in Middlesex.
4. Daughter of Lord Bishop of Clogher, William Foster.
5. "Mr Leopold Fane De Salis (1816 - 1898)". Former Members. Parliament of New South Wales. 2008. Retrieved 29 July 2015.