John Acton

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Sir John Acton, 6th Baronet

Sir John Francis Edward Acton, 6th Baronet (* 1736 in Besançon ; † August 12, 1811 in Palermo ) was an Italian politician and military of English descent. He was Prime Minister of Naples under Ferdinand IV.

Life

His father Edward Acton was a doctor in Besançon, where he was born in 1736. After the death of his third cousin, Sir Robert Acton, 5th Baronet, on November 20, 1791, he inherited the title of nobility Baronet , of Aldenham Hall in the Parish of Morville and created in 1644 in the Baronetage of England for his great-great-great-grandfather County of Salop . Acton first served in the Tuscan Navy, where he distinguished himself as commander of a frigate during a joint campaign by Spain and Tuscany against Algiers in 1775, thanks to his courage and resourcefulness that he was given supreme command.

In 1779, Queen Maria Caroline of Naples persuaded her brother Leopold , the Grand Duke of Tuscany, to allow Acton to enter her service and to reorganize the Neapolitan navy. The skills that he displayed enabled him to have a steep career: he was commander-in-chief of both the army and the navy of the Kingdom of Naples, finance minister and finally prime minister.

His policy, in agreement with the British Ambassador Sir William Hamilton , was shaped by an attempt to strengthen British and Austrian influence on Naples in order to diminish the influence of Spain. This policy brought Naples into opposition to France and the friendly forces in Italy. His financial policy, in which he was concerned with arming Naples for the sake of independence, made him extremely unpopular, so that he had to flee together with the Queen and the King in 1798.

In 1804, under pressure from France, he had to retire for a short time from government affairs, but was soon reinstated in his previous position, which he held until February 1806 (when France invaded Naples). Together with the royal family, he fled to Sicily , where he died in Palermo in 1811.

A papal dispensation enabled him to marry the eldest daughter of his brother, General Joseph Edward Acton, who was also in the Neapolitan service and who was born in 1737. With her he had three children, of whom the first son, his title heir Ferdinand Richard Edward Acton, became the father of the first Lord Acton , while the second son Charles Januarius Acton embarked on a spiritual career and made it cardinal.

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predecessor Office successor
Richard Acton Baronet (of Aldenham)
1791-1811
Ferdinand Acton