Portrait of General-in-Chief, Count William W. Fermor. 1765 by Aleksey Antropov.

Oil on canvas. The Museum of the Academy of Arts, St-Petersburg, Russia.

Visit www.abcgallery.com

to see portaits of Count William Fermor’s son Georges and daughter Sarah Eleanor.

* * *

‘William Fermor was of English extraction, and connected with the same family which claimed the famous Arabella, the heroine of ‘The Rape of the Lock’.

 [If anyone has evidence of this Fermor link, please let me know]. sfclarkson@btinternet.com

He had been the favourite adjutant of Munich and was an excellent artillery officer and engineer. He had been made a Colonel for his services in the Turkish expedition in 1736 and had served with Lacy in Finland in 1741’.

Reference from Terry Fermor: A History of Russia. From the Birth of Peter the Great to the Death of Alexander II (W R Morfill, Methuen London 1902 – p.179)

This forms the introduction to a small booklet I’ve written on Count William Fermor acknowledging the research of Gwen Griffin of New South Wales, Australia; Terry Fermor of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire and the late Alexandre de Fermor of Cannes and Paris.

Terry Fermor contacted Professor A G Cross of Cambridge University, who helpfully sent information in Russian – printed in pre-Revolutionary script – which was translated by Gill Hunkin of St Austell, Cornwall.

The late Alexandre de Fermor kindly sent a copy of Count William’s portrait – the first we have on record.

Many thanks to Joyce Fermor of Peacehaven, Sussex for the reference to Nancy Mitford’s book, Frederick the Great which mentions Count William.

Finally, thank you to my sister Brenda J Bell (née Fermor) for translating the German content of a letter received from the office of the Chief Genealogist of Riddarhuset, Stockholm, Sweden, citing three paragraphs from a German publication of 1773 about Wilhelm von Fermor.

* * *