Charles Gordon-Lennox, 6th Duke of Richmond

Last updated

Frances Harriett Greville
​
​
(m. 1843;died 1887)​
His Grace
The Duke of Richmond
KG PC
Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, 6th Duke of Richmond.jpg
The Duke of Richmond, 1883
President of the Board of Trade
In office
24 June 1885 –19 August 1885
Children6, including Charles and Walter
Parent(s) Charles Lennox, 5th Duke of Richmond
Lady Caroline Paget
Alma mater Christ Church, Oxford

Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, 6th Duke of Richmond, 6th Duke of Lennox, 1st Duke of Gordon, KG , PC (27 February 1818 – 27 September 1903), styled Earl of March until 1860, was a British landowner and Conservative politician.

Contents

Background and education

Born at Richmond House, London, he was the eldest son of Charles Lennox, 5th Duke of Richmond, and his wife Lady Caroline Paget, eldest daughter of Field Marshal Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey.

He was educated at Westminster School before going up to Christ Church, Oxford, and played for Oxford University, being awarded Hon. DCL in 1870.

Commissioned into the Royal Horse Guards in 1839, he served as Aide-de-Camp to the Duke of Wellington from 1842 until 1854. Born with the surname Lennox, when his father inherited the Gordon estates from his uncle, the family took the additional surname Gordon-Lennox, by Royal Licence dated 9 August 1836. [1]

Landowner of 286,000 acres mostly in Banff, Aberdeen and Inverness, in Sussex he owned 17,000 acres. By 1883, the Duke of Richmond had an income of £80,000 a year from his English and Scottish estates. [2]

Political career

"Highly respectable". Vanity Fair caricature by ATn, 1870. Charles Gordon-Lennox, Vanity Fair, 1870-03-26.jpg
"Highly respectable". Vanity Fair caricature by ATn, 1870.

March entered politics as MP for West Sussex in 1841, and was sworn of the Privy Council in 1859. In 1860, he succeeded his father as Duke of Richmond, taking his seat in the House of Lords. [3] He chaired the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, which reported in 1866, and the Royal Commission on Water Supply in 1869, which reported overall planning of water supplies for domestic use had become necessary. [4]

Invested as a Knight of the Garter in 1867, the Duke of Richmond served as a government minister in the Conservative administrations of Lord Derby, Disraeli and the Marquess of Salisbury. [5] Recognised for his public service, in 1876, by being created Duke of Gordon and Earl of Kinrara in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, [3] he was Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen from 1861 until his death at Gordon Castle in 1903.

Richmond served as Lord-Lieutenant of Banffshire and Chairman of West Sussex County Council, having (as Earl of March) been President of Marylebone Cricket Club in 1842 (like his father-in-law in 1828). [6]

Family

He married Frances Harriett Greville (1824–1887), daughter of Algernon Greville, on 28 November 1843. The Duke and Duchess had six children:

Ancestry

See also

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ "No. 19409". The London Gazette . 12 August 1836. p. 1441.
  2. ↑ The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland
  3. 1 2 Wikisource-logo.svg  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lennox". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 420.
  4. ↑ Porter 1978, p. 24.
  5. ↑ McNeill, Ronald John (1911). "Richmond, Earls and Dukes of"  . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 307.
  6. ↑ www.burkespeerage.com
  7. ↑ "Lady Caroline Gordon Lennox". Gordon Chapel. Archived from the original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
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