Frederick William Robert Stewart, 4th Marquess of LondonderryKPPC (7 July 1805–25 November 1872), styled Viscount Castlereagh from 1822 to 1854, was a British nobleman and Tory politician. He was briefly Vice-Chamberlain of the Household under Sir Robert Peel between December 1834 and April 1835.
He was his father's only son from his father's first marriage. In 1812, while Frederick's father was serving in the army in the Peninsular War, Frederick's mother died. Frederick was seven. His father remarried seven years later in 1819 and Frederick's half-siblings were born.
He was the only child of his parents but had younger half-siblings:
Following the death of his mother and during his father's absence on military and diplomatic duties, Frederick was largely raised by his uncle and aunt, Lord and Lady Castlereagh. He went to Eton in 1814, where he stayed until 1820. After his father succeeded to the marquessate of Londonderry in 1822, Frederick Stewart became known by the courtesy titleViscount Castlereagh, which was to be his title for 32 years until 1854. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford in 1823.[5]
Portrait by James Godsell Middleton, 1856. Frederick Stewart as Marquess of Londonderry. The background on the left shows the view from Mount Stewart over the Strangford Lough on Scrabo Hill with its tower.
Personal life
In 1838, Count Gérard de Melcy, the husband of the Italian operatic singer Giulia Grisi, discovered a letter written to Giulia by Frederick Stewart, and the two men fought a duel on 16June of that year. Lord Castlereagh was wounded in the wrist; the Count was uninjured. After the duel, Grisi left her husband and began an affair with Lord Castlereagh. Their son, George Frederick Ormsby (1838–1901), was born in November 1838 and brought up by his father.
By 1852, he "had fallen out with his father, the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry over their views on the land question [and] was obliged to retire because of these differences".[10]
He succeeded his father in 1854 as the 4th Marquess of Londonderry. He built Scrabo Tower as a monument to the memory of his father.[12] In 1857 he and his wife attended the ceremony of the laying of the foundation stone.[13]
Arms of the 4th Marquess of Londonderry
Decline, death, and succession
In 1862 Londonderry was diagnosed as mentally ill. He was secluded in a mental institution at White Rock Pavilion in Hastings.[15][b] He died there on 25November 1872, aged 67 and was buried in the Newtownards Priory. His wife, the dowager Marchioness of Londonderry died on 2September 1884, aged 70, and was buried with him in the double grave in the priory.
As he had no legitimate children, he was succeeded in the marquessate by his half-brother, George Vane-Tempest, 2nd Earl Vane. This had the effect that the fortunes of the Stewart and the Vane side of the Londonderry family were reunited in a single hand.
Ancestry
Ancestors of Frederick Stewart, 4th Marquess of Londonderry
↑ Cokayne 1893, p.132, line: "He [his father] m. [married] firstly, 8Aug. 1804, at St. Geo. Han. sq., Catherine, 4th da. [daughter] of John [Bligh], 3d Earl of Darnley [I. [Ireland]]..."
↑ House of Commons 1878, p.313: "Frederick Stewart, commonly called Lord Viscount Castlereagh / 8 July 1826 / Down County"
↑ Brian Walker, 'Landowners and Parliamentary Elections in County Down, 1801–1921' PP 307–8 in Lindsay Proudfoot, 'Down – History and Society', Geography Publications, 1997
↑ Gordon-Gorman 1899, p.140: "Londondery, The late Elizabeth, fourth Marchioness of, daughter of the third Earl of Roden."
↑ Hyde 1979, p.50: "At the same time her husband constructed the great tower on Scrabo Hill overlooking the town in his father's memory."
Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry,, usually known as Lord Castlereagh, derived from the courtesy title Viscount Castlereagh by which he was styled from 1796 to 1821, was an Irish-born British statesman and politician. As secretary to the Viceroy in Ireland, he worked to suppress the Rebellion of 1798 and to secure passage in 1800 of the Irish Act of Union. As the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom from 1812, he was central to the management of the coalition that defeated Napoleon, and was British plenipotentiary at the Congress of Vienna. In the post-war government of Lord Liverpool, Castlereagh was seen to support harsh measures against agitation for reform, and he ended his life an isolated and unpopular figure.
Robert Stewart, 1st Marquess of LondonderryPC (Ire) (1739–1821), was a County Down landowner, Irish Volunteer, and member of the parliament who, exceptionally for an Ulster Scot and Presbyterian, rose within the ranks of Ireland's "Anglican Ascendancy." His success was fuelled by wealth acquired through judicious marriages, and by the advancing political career of his son, Viscount Castlereagh. In 1798 he gained notoriety for refusing to intercede on behalf of James Porter, his local Presbyterian minister, executed outside the Stewart demesne as a rebel.
Marquess of Londonderry, of the County of Londonderry, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland.
Earl of Antrim is a title that has been created twice, both times in the Peerage of Ireland and both times for members of the MacDonnell family, originally of Scottish origins.
Charles William Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry,, was an Anglo-Irish nobleman, a British soldier and a politician. He served in the French Revolutionary Wars, in the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and in the Napoleonic wars. He excelled as a cavalry commander in the Peninsular War (1807–1814) under John Moore and Arthur Wellesley.
Charles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of Londonderry,, styled Lord Stewart until 1884 and Viscount Castlereagh between 1884 and 1915, was a British peer and politician. He is best remembered in Great Britain for his tenure as Secretary of State for Air in the 1930s and for his attempts to reach an understanding with Nazi Germany. In 1935, he was removed from the Air Ministry but retained in the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords. In Ireland, especially within Ulster, Lord Londonderry is best remembered for his opposition to Home Rule for Ireland in the early twentieth century.
Edward Charles Stewart Robert Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 8th Marquess of Londonderry,, styled Lord Stewart until 1915 and Viscount Castlereagh between 1915 and 1946, was a British peer and politician.
Scrabo Tower is a 135 feet (41 m) high 19th-century lookout tower or folly that stands on Scrabo Hill near Newtownards in County Down, Northern Ireland. It provides wide views and is a landmark that can be seen from afar. It was built as a memorial to Charles Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry and was originally known as the Londonderry Monument. Its architectural style is Scottish Baronial Revival.
Mount Stewart is a 19th-century house and garden in County Down, Northern Ireland, owned by the National Trust. Situated on the east shore of Strangford Lough, a few miles outside the town of Newtownards and near Greyabbey, it was the Irish seat of the Stewart family, Marquesses of Londonderry. Prominently associated with the 2nd Marquess, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, Britain's Foreign Secretary at the Congress of Vienna and with the 7th Marquess, Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, the former Air Minister who at Mount Stewart attempted private diplomacy with Hitler's Germany, the house and its contents reflect the history of the family's leading role in social and political life in Britain and Ireland.
George Henry Robert Charles William Vane-Tempest, 5th Marquess of Londonderry, KP, styled Viscount Seaham between 1823 and 1854 and known as The Earl Vane between 1854 and 1872, was a British aristocrat, businessman, diplomat and Conservative politician.
Alexander Charles Robert "Alastair" Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 9th Marquess of Londonderry was a British nobleman.
Alexander MacDonnell, 3rd Earl of AntrimPC (Ire) was a Catholic peer and military commander in Ireland. He fought together with his brother Randal on the losing side in the Irish Confederate Wars (1641–1653); and then, having succeeded his brother as the 3rd Earl of Antrim in 1683, fought in the Williamite War (1688–1691), on the losing side again. Twice he forfeited his lands and twice he regained them.
Frances Anne Vane, Marchioness of Londonderry was an Anglo-Irish heiress and noblewoman. She was the daughter of Sir Henry Vane-Tempest, 2nd Baronet. She married Charles William Stewart, 1st Baron Stewart. She became a marchioness in 1822 when Charles succeeded his half-brother as 3rd Marquess of Londonderry.
Charles Stewart Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 6th Marquess of Londonderry,, styled Viscount Castlereagh between 1872 and 1884, was a British Conservative politician, landowner and benefactor, who served in various capacities in the Conservative administrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After succeeding his father in the marquessate in 1884, he was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland between 1886 and 1889. He later held office as Postmaster General between 1900 and 1902 and as President of the Board of Education between 1902 and 1905. A supporter of the Protestant causes in Ulster, he was an opponent of Irish Home Rule and one of the instigators of the formal alliance between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Unionists in 1893.
Alexander Stewart (1746–1831), known as Alexander Stewart of Ards, was an Irish landowner and member of parliament.
Alexander Robert Stewart was an Irish landowner and Member of Parliament.
Alexander Stewart was an Irish landowner who grew rich by inheriting a fortune from Robert Cowan, a former governor of Bombay. His son Robert became the 1st Marquess of Londonderry.
John Bligh, 3rd Earl of Darnley, styled The Hon. John Bligh between 1721 and 1747, lord of the Manor of Cobham, Kent, was a British parliamentarian.
Thomas Cherburgh Bligh was an Anglo-Irish Whig politician who served in the Irish House of Commons and the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Frances Stewart, Marchioness of Londonderry, was an English aristocrat and mistress of a large landed and politically connected household in late Georgian Ireland. From her husband's mansion at Mount Stewart, County Down, in the 1790s her circle of friends and acquaintances extended to figures engaged in the democratic politics of the United Irishmen. Correspondence with her stepson, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, and with the English peer and politician John Petty, record major political and social developments of her era.
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