page_title: Robert Child (Wells MP)
section_title: Personal life and family
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Child (Wells MP) / Personal life and family
caption_attribution_description: This portrait was misidentified as the subject's daughter, Lady Sarah Sophia Fane, later Viscountess Villiers, and then Countess of Jersey. It is probably a portrait of her mother, the Countess of Westmorland, who was also named Sarah. The error is apparently written on the back of the item itself, as cited in the linked source, which is an art sale catalog that identifies the sitter as "Sarah Villiers, Viscountess of Jersey" (no such person ever existed). The date of the portrait is given as 1786, which is probably correct based on clothing style. Sarah Fane, the daughter, was born in 1785, and the portrait looks similar to other portraits of Lady Westmorland, who died in 1794.
context_page_description: Robert Child was an English banker and politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Wells from 1765 until his death.
context_section_description: In October 1763, Child married Sarah Jodrell, daughter of Gilbert Jodrell of Ankerwyke, Buckinghamshire.
  They had only one child, a daughter Sarah Anne (born 1764), who in May 1782 eloped to Gretna Green to marry the 10th Earl of Westmorland.  Her father abhorred the Earl, and pursued the couple until one of his horses was shot by Westmorland's men.  Her father had approved the marriage before his death in July that year, but disinherited her to prevent his fortune falling into Westmorland's hands.
  Instead, his wife Sarah inherited a life interest in the bank, where she remained a senior partner until her death in 1793.  She remarried in 1791, to Francis Reynolds-Moreton, 3rd Baron Ducie, but excluded him from the running of the bank. After her death, her husband's will settled his estate on the second surviving son or eldest daughter of Sarah Anne. However, only one of Child's grandsons survived, so the estate — including Osterley Park and the senior partnership in the bank — passed to Sarah Sophia Fane, his eldest granddaughter.  She married George Child Villiers, 5th Earl of Jersey, but like her grandmother she ran the bank without admitting her husband to the partnership.
  Her wealth was so great that on her marriage in 1805 she gave £20,000 (£1.63 million in 2020) each to her father, her brother and two sisters, but still had an annual income from her inheritance of over £60,000 (£4.9 million in 2020).
caption: Child's runaway daughter Sarah Anne, as painted in miniature in 1786
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