Sir Cecil Fane de Salis,,, of Dawley Court, Hillingdon, Uxbridge, Middlesex, was chairman of Middlesex County Council 1919–1924, and landowner in the parish of Harlington.
Biography
A nephew of William Fane de Salis and second of the four sons of Rev. Henry Jerome Fane De Salis of Portnall Park he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He became a barrister. In March 1899 he was elected unopposed to Middlesex County Council to represent Stanwell. He was re-elected three times before unexpectedly losing his seat at the 1910 county council election. He was able to remain a member of the council when he chosen as a county alderman a few days later. He was Chairman of Middlesex County Council from 1919-24. In 1937 he retired from the county council when he did not seek re-election as an alderman. Chairman and owner of market gardeners H. & A. Pullen Burry, Ltd. of Sompting, West Sussex; he was a director of the Dawley Wall Gravel Pit in the parish of Harlington; JP, chairman of the bench 1921–1931; Deputy Lieutenant ; High Sheriff. In 1931 he became a companion of the Order of the Bath and was made a knight of the same order in 1935. During the First World War he sat for 449 days as one of the ten members of the Appeal Tribunal for the County of Middlesex, which he described: "This was sad work and many hard cases had to be dealt with, and often decided against the appellant". He was vice-chairman and then chairman of the Middlesex Territorial and Auxiliary Force Association. Through Middlesex County Council he was closely associated with the mental hospitals at Harperbury and Shenley. He was also a governor of Uxbridge County School, aka the Bishopshalt School, now in Hillingdon. . He was a member of the Union Club.
Fourteen children
He married, on 3 September 1889, Rachel Elizabeth Frances Waller,, only child and heir of Edmund Waller VI or VII, and had 14 children, living firstly, 1889–1896, with his father at Portnall Park and then at Dawley Court.
Henry Edmund Challoner, born Portnall, 17 July 1891; died Oxford, 20 September 1913
Adela Lucy, born Portnall, 9 October 1893; died Portnall, 9 January 1894
Edmund William, born Portnall, 31 December 1894; died Hampstead Marshall, 21 January 1980
Jerome Joseph, born Portnall, 3 January 1896; died Lincoln, 3 October 1915
John Peter, born Dawley, 15 April 1897; died Thornbury, 21 October 1973
George Rodolph, born Dawley, 1 June 1898; died France, 21 June 1917
Barbara Grace Victoria, born Dawley, 20 January 1900; died Johannesburg, November 1990
Rev. Andrew Augustine, born Dawley, 17 January 1901; died 3 February 1962
The Belfast Gazette of 11 March 1927, records Cecil as having 18 parcels of land in county Armagh. These were at Dromart, Tandragee; Ballyworkan, Portadown; Tamnaghvelton; Tamnaghmore; and Brackagh, Portadown. These came to circa 140 acres and were valued at and compulsorily sold to the tenants for circa £2,000 in 1927.
