East Africa & Rhodesia - 2/11/50 - Mr George Fane, a well known Kenyan, has died at Bransgore, Hampshire, while on leave in England. Wherever there was new work on road, railway, or mine, there would he be found with his theodolite; a few months before his death, when a very sick man, he would not give up until he had completed a tough road survey in the Timboroa forests at 9000 feet.

He was born in 1881, the eldest son of the late Cecil Fane and Lady Augusta Fane, and after being educated privately went to Canada, where for 11 years he was engaged on railway surveys and construction in the Province of Quebec. The life of working and camping at temperatures of "40 below" and moving through the "tall timbers" by dog-team in winter and canoe on the lakes and swift rivers in the summer, appealed deeply to his adventurous nature.

In 1914 he returned home to join the Army, and served in turn in the Royal Fusiliers, the Machine Gun Corps, and the Tank Corps.

After the war he went to the Texas oil-fields and then in 1923 to Kenya, where in 1942 he married Rebecca, widow of Major Hugh Ward. George Fane had great skill in many sports - sailing racing yachts, fishing, shooting, and tennis - and the fact that he had one arm partially disabled from an encounter with a lion in no way deterred him from practising any of them. He was a man of great personal charm, whose gay, courageous attitude to life will long be remembered by his friends. Mr Colin Maher writes - George Fane, a man of lean figure, and an addict of the 'daily dozen,' looked 20 years younger than his age, and could put many a much younger man to shame by his agility and energy on safari. He was of imperturbable temperament, and had a quiet, dry sense of humour and a kindly disposition which made him a good friend and entertaining companion. One of his chief interests was fishing, which his life in Kenya enabled him to indulge to the full. The sympathy of many friends will go out to Mrs Fane, who has been for many years the energetic and enthusiastic honorary secretary of the Kenya Arbor Society.

Gazette 10 Oct 1950 probate

Gazette 1 May 1962 wife's probate

1939 England and Wales Register living, single, as civil engineer, in Swalcliffe Manor, Banbury

See Peerage