Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 9th Baronet

Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 9th Baronet (18 April 1752 – 17 May 1794) of Killerton in Devon and Holnicote in Somerset, was a prominent landowner and member of the West Country gentry.

According to tradition he had become estranged from his father and had quarrelled with his elder brother Col. John Dyke Acland (1747–1778)[7] and had consequently moved away from the family estates.

He had a propensity to get into debt, and thus his father had avoided bequeathing him a large sum of capital he might squander.

His elder brother had predeceased their father, and had left an infant son as heir to the baronetcy.

He virtually abandoned the family's main seat of Killerton in mid-Devon, and lived chiefly at Holnicote and Highercombe, near Dulverton, situated at the north and south edges respectively of the ancient royal forest of Exmoor, renowned for its herds of Red Deer.

[10] He was a stern employer of his hunt-staff, and on one occasion when his hounds had killed several sheep, possibly belonging to his farming tenants, he ordered his huntsman "to hang himself and the whole pack".

He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet (1787–1871), whose interests lay not in hunting but rather in politics and philanthropy, which set the trend for several generations of his descendants.

Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 9th Baronet (1752–1794). By British (English) School, Collection of National Trust, Killerton House
Arms of Acland: Chequy argent and sable, a fesse gules
Acland as a boy, portrait by Richard Phelps
Stalls in stable block built by Acland at Holnicote. The thirty stag heads on the walls date from about 1787 to 1793 and were killed under his mastership of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds . A similar collection of stag heads amassed by his father the 7th Baronet, and much beloved by the latter, was destroyed during a fire at Holnicote in 1779 [ 1 ]
Loose boxes in stable block built by Acland at Holnicote, with his stag head trophies
Holnicote House in 1785, as rebuilt after the fire of 1779, [ 9 ] viewed from the south-west. In the foreground is Sir Thomas Dyke Acland with staghounds. 1785 Oil painting by Francis Towne .