William Fane de Salis

William Andreas Salius Fane de Salis (27 October 1812 – 3 August 1896) was a British businessman, colonialist, and barrister. Early life De Salis was the third son of Jerome, 4th Count de Salis-Soglio (d. 1836), by his third wife, Henrietta Foster (d. 1856). Peter, 5th Count de Salis-Soglio was an elder half-brother; Rodolphus (a general) was an elder brother and Henry (a bishop) was his youngest brother. Born in St. Marylebone, Westminster, and brought up in County Louth he was educated at Eton, Heidelberg University, and Oriel College, Oxford, where he took a fourth-class degree in classics. He was called to the Bar in 1836; and was at 3 Brick Court, Inner Temple, by 1840. He was appointed a revising barrister for Northamptonshire (1839), Nottingham and East Retford. Career Fane de Salis visited Australia in 1842, 1844 and 1848 to pursue business opportunities in the Australian wool and other industries, then rapidly expanding. His younger brother Leopold Fabius Fane de Salis had migrated there in 1840. William became, with John Thacker, a partner in Thacker & Co, Jardine Matheson's affiliated house in Sydney, but resigned from 1 July 1847. By 1848 he owned with Robert Towns a 345-ton barque, the Statesman. This they sold, in March 1854, for $16,500, she having had an accident 'on her passage up to China from Sydney'.