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| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Spencer Cecil Brabazon Ponsonby | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 14 March 1824 Mayfair, Westminster, London, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 1 December 1915 (aged 91) Yeovil, Somerset, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting | Right-hand bat | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Relations | Ponsonby family | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1841–1862 | Marylebone Cricket Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1848–1858 | Surrey | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1862 | Middlesex | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: Cricket Archive, 25 August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sir Spencer Cecil Brabazon Ponsonby-Fane, GCB, ISO (né Ponsonby; 14 March 1824 – 1 December 1915) was an English cricketer and civil servant. He was born in 1824 in Mayfair, the sixth son of John Ponsonby, 4th Earl of Bessborough.
Ponsonby played for both Middlesex and Surrey, and later administered Somerset and Harrow Cricket Club. He was a nephew of the Rev. Lord Frederick Beauclerk and had played with William Ward. He took part in the first Canterbury Cricket Week, and was one of the three founders of I Zingari in 1845. He was Treasurer of MCC from 1879 until his death in 1915, by which time he had been a member of the club for 75 years. He several times declined the offer of becoming president. While Treasurer, he began the MCC Collection, subsequently known as the Lord's Museum and Library.[1]
Ponsonby joined the Foreign Office in 1840. He was Private Secretary to three Foreign Secretaries: Lord Palmerston 1846–1851, Lord Granville 1851–1852, and Lord Clarendon 1853–1857. In 1856 he brought from Paris the definitive copy of the peace treaty for the Crimean War.[2] Later he was Comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain's Office 1857–1901, Gentleman Usher to the Sword of State 1901–1915 and Bath King of Arms 1904–1915.[3][4]
Ponsonby-Fane married, on 7 October 1847, Honourable Louisa Anne Rose Lee Dillon (1825–1902), daughter of Henry Dillon, 13th Viscount Dillon. Lady Ponsonby-Fane died at their estate on 18 July 1902.[5] They had eleven children:
In 1875, he changed his surname to Ponsonby-Fane upon inheriting the estate of Brympton d'Evercy from his aunt, Lady Georgiana Fane. He spent the remainder of his life there improving the gardens until he died in 1915, after which the estate passed to his eldest son, John.
