Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, played an influential role throughout the life of George Washington. Having been introduced to Washington shortly after settling in Belvoir, Va., in 1747, Fairfax became Washington’s first employer when he hired the sixteen-year-old Virginian to survey his lands west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Although a professed Loyalist throughout the American Revolution, Fairfax was quiet about his sentiments and remained a close friend of Washington until Fairfax’s death in 1781. In this lecture, Nicholas Fairfax, 14th Lord Fairfax of Cameron and descendant of Thomas Fairfax, discusses the early history of the Fairfax family in America and the relationship between the Fairfax and Washington families before and after the Revolution.
About the Speaker
Nicholas Fairfax, 14th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, is a Scottish nobleman, peer, and politician. He first served as a member of the House of Lords from 1977 to 1995, before he was elected to return to that body as one of the forty-eight elected Hereditary Conservative Peers in November 2015.