Thomas Anson, 2nd Earl of Lichfield

Thomas George Anson, 2nd Earl of Lichfield (15 August 1825 – 7 January 1892), known as Viscount Anson from 1831 to 1854, was a British politician from the Anson family.

Early life

Lichfield was the eldest of four sons and four daughters born to Thomas Anson, 1st Earl of Lichfield, and his wife Louisa Catherine (née Philips). Among his siblings was Augustus Anson, a soldier who received the Victoria Cross, and Adelbert John Robert Anson, a clergyman who served as Bishop of Qu'Apelle in Canada.

He was educated at Eton College, in Windsor, England.

Career On 16 November 1844, aged 19, he was commissioned as the Captain of the Lichfield Troop of the part-time Staffordshire Yeomanry, commanded by his father. He remained with the regiment into the early 1860s.

Between 1846 and 1847, Viscount Anson was with the Foreign Office. He was returned to Parliament for Lichfield in 1847, a seat he held until 1854, when he succeeded his father in the earldom and took his seat in the House of Lords. He also succeeded as the 3rd Baron Soberton and the 4th Viscount Anson.

Personal life

On 10 April 1855, Lord Lichfield married Lady Harriett Georgiana Louisa, daughter of James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn, and Louisa Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn (the eldest daughter of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, by his second wife, Lady Georgiana Gordon, and the sister of Prime Minister John Russell, 1st Earl Russell). Together, they were the parents of nine sons and four daughters: who married his cousin, Lady Mildred Coke, daughter of Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester. He died in 1926. Lady Evelyn Anson (1873–1895), who did not marry. who in 1912 married Lela (née Alexander) Emery, the mother of John J. Emery and Audrey, Princess Romanovskaya-Ilyinskaya. He was educated at Monkton Combe School and Harrow.

Lord Lichfield died in January 1892, aged 66, and was buried at St Stephen's Church in Great Haywood. He was succeeded as Earl of Lichfield by his eldest son Thomas. Lady Lichfield died in 1913.