Richard Griffin, 2nd Baron Braybrooke

Richard Griffin, 2nd Baron Braybrooke (3 July 1750 – 28 February 1825) was an English politician and peer. He was known as Richard Aldworth-Neville or Richard Aldworth Griffin-Neville to 1797.

Richard Griffin, 2nd Baron Braybrooke, 1810 engraving

Life

The only son and heir of Richard Neville Aldworth Neville, he was born on 3 July 1750 in Duke Street, Westminster. He matriculated at Merton College, Oxford, on 20 June 1768, was created M.A. 4 July 1771, D.C.L. 3 July 1810, and was incorporated LL.D. of Cambridge in 1819.

Richard Aldworth Neville, portrait by George Romney.

Neville served as a Lieutenant in the Berkshire Militia in 1779. He was Member of Parliament for Grampound from 10 October 1774 till the dissolution in 1780, and for Buckingham in the next parliament till his appointment as agent to the Buckinghamshire Militia in February 1782. On the 21st of the same month he was returned for Reading, and was re-elected there for the three succeeding parliaments (1784, 1790, 1796).

A Grand Tour Group of Five Gentlemen in Rome (c.1773), group portrait attributed to John Brown. To the right of the guide, with a spaniel on his knee, is the future 2nd Baron Braybrooke. The others of the party are: John Staples, James Byres, Sir William Young, 2nd Baronet, and Thomas Orde-Powlett, 1st Baron Bolton.

On the death, in May 1797, of his father's maternal uncle John Griffin, 4th Baron Howard de Walden, by whom he had been adopted as heir, Griffin-Neville succeeded to the Braybrooke barony. He assumed the additional surname and arms of Griffin, and came into possession of the Audley End estate until the death in 1802 of Dr. Parker, son-in-law of the late Baron, who had a life interest in it. Braybrooke increased the property by the purchase of neighbouring manors and farms from the Earls of Bristol and Suffolk, and other acquisitions. He became Lord Lieutenant of Essex and custos rotulorum of the county immediately after his accession to the peerage (19 January 1798), and was also vice-admiral of Essex, recorder of Saffron Walden, high steward of Wokingham, hereditary visitor of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and provost marshal of Jamaica.

Braybrooke died on 28 February 1825, after a lingering illness, at his seat at Billingbear House, and was buried at Laurence Waltham.

Family

Aldworth-Neville married in June 1780, at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, Catherine, youngest daughter of George Grenville. Their sons were:

• twins, who died immediately after birth;
• Hon. Richard, who became 3rd Baron Braybrooke;
• Hon. Henry, a captain in the dragoons, who died in 1809 while serving in Spain;
• Hon. George Neville-Grenville; and
• William, who died young.

Of four daughters:

• Hon. Catherine died unmarried in 1841;
• Hon. Mary married Sir Stephen Glynne, 8th Baronet, of Hawarden;
• Hon. Caroline (d. May 1868) married in 1817 Paul Thompson, 1st Baron Wenlock; and
• Frances died young.

Notes

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1894). "Neville, Richard Aldworth Griffin-". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 40. London: Smith, Elder & Co.