Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester
Thomas William Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester, known as Viscount Coke from 1837 to 1842, was a British peer.
Coke, by George Richmond, 1858
Holkham Hall remains the family seat of the Earls of Leicester.
Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (seventh creation)
Thomas William Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, known as Coke of Norfolk or Coke of Holkham, was a British politician and agricultural reformer. Born to Wenman Coke, Member of Parliament (MP) for Derby, and his wife Elizabeth, Coke was educated at several schools, including Eton College, before undertaking a Grand Tour of Europe. He returned to Britain and married. When his father died he inherited a 30,000-acre Norfolk estate. Returned to Parliament in 1776 for Norfolk, Coke became a close friend of Charles James Fox, and joined his Eton schoolmate William Windham in his support of the American colonists during the American Revolutionary War. As a supporter of Fox, Coke was one of the MPs who lost their seats in the 1784 general election, and he returned to Norfolk to work on farming, hunting, and the maintenance and expansion of Holkham Hall, his ancestral home.
Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (seventh creation)
William Windham, Coke's friend and supporter during the American Revolutionary War
Humphry Repton, who Coke employed to modify the grounds at Holkham Hall
Daughter Jane Coke