John Francis Amherst Cecil

John Francis Amherst Cecil (30 June 1890 – 22 October 1954) was the first secretary of the British Embassy, Washington, known for his marriage to Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt. The following year, Cornelia's mother married Peter Goelet Gerry, a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, in London. Together, Cornelia and John were the parents of two children:

George Henry Vanderbilt Cecil (1925–2020), who married Nancy Owen (1930–2016). William Amherst Vanderbilt Cecil (1928–2017) who married Mary Lee Ryan (1931–2017), a first cousin of First Lady Jackie Kennedy, as their mothers, Janet Norton Lee and Marion Merritt Lee, were sisters.

Around 1932, reportedly finding life at Biltmore too dull, his wife moved to New York City to study art, leaving Cecil to manage Biltmore. After her 1934 move abroad, she never returned to Biltmore or the United States again. After Paris, she moved to London, where she met and married Captain Vivian Francis Bulkeley-Johnson in October 1949. Bulkeley-Johnson, the aide-de-camp to the 9th Duke of Devonshire when he was the Governor General of Canada from 1916 to 1918, served in the offices of the Imperial War Cabinet in World War I and in the Air Ministry. They remained married until his death in 1968.

After they divorced in 1934, Cecil remained in Biltmore, and he died on 22 October 1954 in Asheville, North Carolina.