Fitz Fact Day 21: James Fitzjames was fostered by Robert and Louisa Conningham after his disgraced father Sir James Gambier had his wife find a discreet home for his bastard son. Robert Conningham was born in 1784 in Londonderry, Ireland and was a Cambridge educated and an ordained priest. Louisa Conningham née Capper was born in 1777 in India, she was an intellectual who favored literature, philosophy, and women’s education. She wrote and published two books (A Poetic History of England and An Abridgment of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding: With Some Conjectures Respecting The Interference of Nature With Education.) The Conningham’s had a son named John who passed away around the same age as toddler Fitzjames. They later had a son, William Conningham and lifetime companion to Fitzjames. Though Fitzjames referred to his foster father as “Uncle” and they claimed James came to them at the age of seven, he was treated as a son, Louisa having wrote to him “I consider you as a son.”