In 1732 Thomas Fairfax, the sixth Lord Fairfax of Cameron, was reading the Gentleman’s Magazine obituary of the agent to his lands in Virginia, Robert Carter. To his astonishment he discovered Carter was worth, in those days, £10,000 and so Fairfax immediately began to think of crossing the pond. In the meantime he had a relative installed to his estates in the Colony of Virginia and three years later he became the only member of the peerage to reside in the Thirteen Colonies. A Scottish title, it was passed down until memories faded. His wealth grew and naturally, as was the case for wealthy American elites in those days, he largely benefitted from chattel slavery. An old man by the time of the American Revolution, Fairfax wisely kept his views to himself, and since he was a friend and neighbour of George Washington, he was able to retain his property, before dying at the ripe old age of 88 shortly after the Siege of Yorktown and the departure of the British.

This is just one of numerous stories of the Fairfax dynasty written by Hugh Fairfax, an artist who researched his family history and discovered a cornucopia of fascinating figures beginning with the sixth Lord, and covering more than two hundred years to the middle of the 20th century.

It was the 9th Fairfax who made up for the sixth in being an early enthusiast of emancipation. The book reads like a history of America from the pre-Revolutionary era when so many in the colonies were on the make – Philadelphia had more book shops than all of England in the 1760s – to the American Civil War when the Fairfax family experienced that tumultuous period in ways that many will find familiar from Gone with the Wind.

Happily Albert Kirby Fairfax, 12th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, decided to research his family, much like his descendant Hugh, since memories of Scotland had long since withered, only to discover there was a title waiting to be re-claimed. So began the story of the return to Britain, as he took up his seat in the House of Lords, becoming a British subject in 1908.

It is the third Lord Fairfax, Sir Thomas of the New Model Army who will be most well-known to the reader, but Fairfax of Virginia is a hugely enjoyable romp through generations of an aristocratic family straddling continents. They are unique as peers having participated in the civil wars of both England and America and who now have that story documented thanks to Hugh, brother of the 14th Fairfax of Cameron.

Oliver Webb-Carter is the Editor of Aspects of History.