The Duke of Abercorn | |
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![]() Portrait by Allan Warren, 1990 | |
Chancellor of the Order of the Garter | |
Assumed office 17 October 2012 | |
Monarchs | Elizabeth II Charles III |
Preceded by | The Lord Carrington |
Lord Steward | |
In office 2001–2009 | |
Monarch | Elizabeth II |
Preceded by | The Viscount Ridley |
Succeeded by | The Earl of Dalhousie |
Lord Lieutenant of Tyrone | |
In office 20 March 1987 –4 July 2009 | |
Monarch | Elizabeth II |
Preceded by | John Hamilton-Stubber |
Succeeded by | Robert Lowry Scott |
Member of the House of Lords | |
In office 4 June 1979 –11 November 1999 | |
Preceded by | James Hamilton,4th Duke of Abercorn |
Succeeded by | House of Lords Act 1999 |
Member of Parliament for Fermanagh and South Tyrone | |
In office 15 October 1964 –29 May 1970 | |
Preceded by | Lord Robert Grosvenor |
Succeeded by | Frank McManus |
Personal details | |
Born | 4 July 1934 |
Political party | Ulster Unionist |
Spouse | |
Children |
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Parents | |
James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Abercorn, KG (born 4 July 1934), styled Viscount Strabane until 1953 and Marquess of Hamilton between 1953 and 1979, is a British peer, courtier and politician.
He became the 5th Duke of Abercorn in the Peerage of Ireland on the death of his father, the 4th Duke, in 1979. [1] He was an Ulster Unionist politician and served as Member of Parliament for Fermanagh and South Tyrone. He later served as Lord Steward of the Household to Elizabeth II. He has been Chancellor of the Order of the Garter since 2012.
He was born on 4 July 1934 to James Hamilton, Marquess of Hamilton, and The Hon. Kathleen Crichton. From birth, he held the courtesy title Viscount Strabane, until the death of his paternal grandfather, the 3rd Duke of Abercorn, in 1953, when he became Marquess of Hamilton, the title he held until the death of his father.
On 20 October 1966, the then Lord Hamilton married Alexandra Phillips, daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Harold Phillips and Georgina Wernher, herself the elder daughter and co-heiress of Sir Harold Wernher, 3rd Baronet, of Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire. Their wedding at Westminster Abbey was attended by members of the royal family, including Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother, and Prince Andrew was a pageboy.
The Duke and Duchess of Abercorn had three children:
The Duke was a first cousin of the 8th Earl Spencer, father of Diana, Princess of Wales. He attended Diana's 1981 wedding to Prince Charles at St Paul's Cathedral.
Educated at Eton College and the Royal Agricultural College, in 1953 he was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards as Second Lieutenant Lord James Paisley, [4] and then promoted to Lieutenant in 1955. [5] He quit active service and was absorbed into the Regular Reserves a year later. [6] In 1964 he became Ulster Unionist MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, succeeding his cousin, Lord Robert Grosvenor. He held his seat in the 1966 election but lost it to Frank McManus in 1970 by 1,423 votes. [7] In 1970 he served as High Sheriff of Tyrone. [8] In 1974 he joined the Ulster Defence Regiment, [9] but left the regiment and remained in the British Army in the Volunteer List in 1980. [10] From 1986 to 2009 he was the Lord Lieutenant of County Tyrone. In 1999, he was appointed a Knight of the Order of the Garter. [11] He was Colonel of the Irish Guards from 2000 to 2008. [12] Additionally, he was appointed Lord Steward of the Household in 2001, serving until 2009.[ citation needed ]
He owns more than 15,000 acres (61 km2). His seat is Baronscourt, near Newtownstewart, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The Dukedom of Abercorn is in the Peerage of Ireland and did not carry an entitlement to a seat in the House of Lords, but until 1999 the Duke was entitled to sit there under his subsidiary title Marquess of Abercorn, in the Peerage of Great Britain. He was appointed Chancellor of the Order of the Garter on 17 October 2012. [13]
In 1987, he served as a judge in Prince Edward's charity television special The Grand Knockout Tournament .
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James Hamilton, 1st Earl of AbercornPC (S) (1575–1618) was a Scottish diplomat for James VI and an undertaker in the Plantation of Ulster, Ireland.
The title Duke of Abercorn is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1868 and bestowed upon James Hamilton, 2nd Marquess of Abercorn. Although the Dukedom is in the Peerage of Ireland, it refers to Abercorn, West Lothian, and the Duke also bears four titles in Peerage of Scotland and two in the Peerage of Great Britain, and is one of only three peers who have titles in those three peerages. The Duke of Abercorn also claims the French title of Duke of Châtellerault, created in 1548.
An unofficial order of precedence in Northern Ireland, according to Burke's Peerage, 106th Edition, this is not officially authorised by or published with authority from either Buckingham Palace or the College of Arms, or the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice or the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, or the Northern Ireland Assembly, or the Northern Ireland Executive.
James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn,, styled Viscount Hamilton from 1814 to 1818 and The Marquess of Abercorn from 1818 to 1868, was a British Conservative statesman who twice served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
James Albert Edward Hamilton, 3rd Duke of Abercorn, styled Marquess of Hamilton between 1885 and 1913, was a British peer and Unionist politician. He was the first Governor of Northern Ireland, a post he held between 1922 and 1945. He was a great-grandfather of Diana, Princess of Wales.
James Hamilton, 2nd Duke of Abercorn, styled Viscount Hamilton until 1868 and Marquess of Hamilton from 1868 to 1885, was a British nobleman, groom of the stool, and diplomat. He was the son of James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn, and Lady Louisa Jane Russell.
James Edward Hamilton, 4th Duke of Abercorn styled Viscount Strabane until 1913 and Marquess of Hamilton between 1913 and 1953, was a British peer. He was the son of James Hamilton, 3rd Duke of Abercorn, and Lady Rosalind Cecilia Caroline Bingham. He inherited his father's peerages on 12 September 1953.
This is a list of people who have served as Lord Lieutenant of County Tyrone.
Lieutenant-Colonel Robert George Grosvenor, 5th Duke of Westminster, was a British soldier, landowner, businessman and politician. In the 1970s he was the richest man in Britain.
Alexandra Anastasia Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn, was a British peeress and philanthropist. She was the wife of James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Abercorn, and a descendant of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, in whose honour she founded the Pushkin Trust and the Pushkin prizes.
Lord Hamilton, Baron of Strabane, in the County of Tyrone, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland created on 8 May 1617, for James Hamilton, Master of Abercorn, eldest son of James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Abercorn, during the life of his father ; the barony had the special remainder to the heir-males of his father. He was about thirteen at the time. Both Abercorn and Paisley were in the peerage of Scotland. He inherited his father's several titles in 1618, his grandfather's title in 1621.
James Hamilton, Viscount Hamilton was a British nobleman and politician.
Claud Hamilton, 2nd Baron Hamilton of Strabane was the founder of the Strabane branch of the Hamiltons. He died relatively young at about 32 and his wife, Jean Gordon, married Sir Phelim O'Neill, one of the leaders of the 1641 rebellion, after his death.
James Hamilton, 3rd Lord Hamilton, Baron of Strabane (1633–1655) fought against the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland together with his stepfather Phelim O'Neill. In the Siege of Charlemont of 1650, they defended the fort against Coote, but had eventually to surrender. In 1655 Lord Strabane accidentally drowned in the River Mourne near Strabane, aged about 22 and was succeeded by his brother George.
George Hamilton, 4th Baron Hamilton of Strabane was the younger son of Claud Hamilton, 2nd Baron Hamilton of Strabane. He succeeded to the title in 1655 when his brother drowned while bathing in the River Mourne. After the Restoration, he obtained the return of the family lands around Strabane, which had been confiscated by the Parliamentarians in 1650.
Claud Hamilton, 4th Earl of Abercorn PC (Ire) (1659–1691) was a Scottish and Irish peer who fought for the Jacobites in the Williamite War. He went with King James to Derry in 1689 and tried to negotiate the surrender of the town with Adam Murray. He raised a regiment of horse that he led in the defeats of Newtownbutler in 1689 and Aughrim in 1691. He was killed when the ship that should have brought him to France was intercepted by a Dutch privateer.
Charles Hamilton, 5th Earl of Abercorn succeeded his brother who had been attainted as a Jacobite and, having conformed to the established church, could get the attainder reversed.
James Hamilton, 6th Earl of Abercorn, PC (Ire), was a Scottish and Irish peer and politician. Appointed a groom of the bedchamber to Charles II after the his father's death in battle, he took the Williamite side at the Glorious Revolution and in March 1689 supplied Derry with stores that enabled the town to sustain the Siege of Derry until it was relieved in August. Shortly after inheriting a Scottish and Irish peerage from a second cousin, he was created a viscount in Ireland for his services to the Williamite cause.
James Hamilton, 7th Earl of AbercornPC (Ire) (1686–1744), styled Lord Paisley from 1701 to 1734, was a Scottish and Irish nobleman and peer. An amateur scientist and musician, he published a book on magnetism in 1729 and a treatise on musical harmony in 1730, which was subsequently emended and re-issued by his teacher, Dr. Pepusch.
Sir George Hamilton, 1st Baronet of Donalong and Nenagh, born in Scotland, inherited land in Ireland and fought in the Irish Army under his brother-in-law, the 1st Duke of Ormond, in the Confederate Wars and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, during which he defended Nenagh Castle against Henry Ireton. Hamilton was father of Antoine Hamilton, author of the Mémoires du Comte de Grammont, of Richard Hamilton, Jacobite general, and of Elizabeth, Countess de Gramont, "la belle Hamilton".