John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland, (1 June 1759 – 15 December 1841), styled Lord Burghersh between 1771 and 1774, was a British Tory politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, who served in most of the cabinets of the period, primarily as Lord Privy Seal ultimately spending 33 years in the Cabinet.
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Background
Westmorland was the son of John Fane, 9th Earl of Westmorland, and Lady Augusta Bertie, daughter of Capt. Lord Montagu Bertie (the seventh child of Robert Bertie, 1st Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven). He succeeded in the earldom on the death of his father in 1774.
Military career
He served as a Captain in the Northamptonshire Militia when it was embodied for service during the American War of Independence. When the French Revolutionary War broke out in 1793 he was the regiment's Lieutenant-Colonel but did not serve with it because he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at the time. On his return to England he commanded the Northamptonshire Provisional Cavalry in 1797 with the rank of Colonel. At the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803 he raised the Oundle and Cliffe Volunteers and served as their colonel. When the British Volunteer Corps were replaced by the Local Militia in 1809 he was appointed colonel of the Western Regiment, Northamptonshire Local Militia.