Acland's eldest son died as a result of wounds aged 34. His grandson died at the age of 7 a few weeks after inheriting the baronetcy and so his second son, Thomas Dyke Acland (1752–1794), became the ninth Baronet. Like his father, he was known locally in Devon and Somerset as "Sir Thomas his Honour" and they shared a passion for staghunting. He followed him into the Mastership of the North Devon Staghounds and virtually abandoned the family's main seat of Killerton in mid-Devon to live at Holnicote and Highercombe, near Dulverton, on the north and south edges respectively of the ancient royal forest of Exmoor, renown for its herds of red deer. During the period 1785 to his death in 1794 he killed 101 stags, the heads and antlers of many of which are still displayed in the stables at Holnicote. 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".