Hesketh was the son of Sir Thomas George Fermor-Hesketh, 7th Baronet, and Florence Emily Sharon,[1] daughter of U.S.

[citation needed] He achieved the ranks of 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Horse Guards, Captain in the Lancashire Hussars Yeomanry and Honorary Major in the Territorial Army and also served as a Justice of the Peace for Lancashire and for Northamptonshire.

Hesketh sat briefly as a Member of Parliament for Enfield from 1922 to 1923 and was later High Sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1932.

[4] On 9 September 1909 Lord Hesketh married Florence Louise Breckinridge (1881–1956) at the British Embassy Church in Paris.

[5] She was the daughter of John Witherspoon Breckinridge and the former Louise (née Tevis), who married Thomas' uncle, Frederick W. Sharon, after divorcing her father.