Vere Beauclerk, 1st Baron Vere

Arms of Admiral Lord Vere

Admiral Vere Beauclerk, 1st Baron Vere (14 July 1699 – 21 October 1781), known as Lord Vere Beauclerk until 1750, was a British peer and politician, a son of the 1st Duke of St Albans and a grandson of King Charles II.

From February 1731–1739 he commanded HMS Anglesea.

On 13 April 1736, in London, he married Mary Chambers (c. 1714-21 January 1783), a maternal granddaughter of the 2nd Earl of Berkeley. They later had six children (four of whom died young):

• Vere Beauclerk (12 January 1737 – 26 December 1739)
• Chambers Beauclerk (22 February 1738 – 16 July 1747)
• Sackville Beauclerk (12 April 1739 – 25 April 1739)
• The Hon. Aubrey Beauclerk (3 June 1740 – 9 February 1802)
• Elizabeth Beauclerk (July 1742 – April 1746); buried on 26 April 1746
• The Hon. Mary Beauclerk (4 December 1743 – 13 January 1812); who married Lord Charles Spencer, son of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough.

From 1726 to 1741 he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Windsor and for Plymouth (succeeding his brother Henry) from 1741 to 1750. On his retirement from politics in 1750, he was created Baron Vere, of Hanworth in the County of Middlesex.

Lord Vere was elected one of the first Vice Presidents of London's charitable Foundling Hospital for abandoned children, an unpaid position. He served in that capacity from the institution's first year of 1739 until 1756, but then again from 1758 until 1767.

References

• Ships of the RN
• R.H. Nichols and F A. Wray, The History of the Foundling Hospital (London: Oxford University Press, 1935), pp. 412–413.