William Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans
The Duke of St Albans | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Preceded by | William Beauclerk |
| Succeeded by | William Amelius Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk |
| Personal details | |
| Born | William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk 24 March 1801 Hampshire, England |
| Died | 27 May 1849 (aged 48) Middlesex, England |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 1 son and 2 daughters |
| Parent(s) | William Beauclerk, 8th Duke of St Albans; Maria Janetta née Nelthorpe |
| Relatives | Admiral Lord Amelius Beauclerk (uncle); Revd Lord Frederick Beauclerk (uncle); Caroline, Countess of Essex (sister); Lady Georgina Cholmeley (sister); Janetta, Duchess of Rutland (niece) |
| Alma mater | Christ's College, Cambridge |
| Occupation | First-class cricketer |
William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans (24 March 1801 – 27 May 1849), styled the Hon. William Beauclerk before 1815 then Earl of Burford until 1825, was a 19th-century English cricketer and member of the House of Lords.
Background and education
[edit]Born in Hampshire, the eldest son of Commander William Beauclerk, 8th Duke of St Albans, and his second wife, Maria Janetta née Nelthorpe, he was educated at Westminster School and Christ's College, Cambridge.[1]
His mother, Maria Duchess of St Albans (1779–1822), was the only daughter and heiress of John Nelthorpe of Little Grimsby Hall, High Sheriff of Lincolnshire (for 1775/76) and Mary Cracroft, second daughter, by his first wife, of Robert Cracroft of Hackthorn Hall.[2]
His paternal grandparents were Lady Catharine Ponsonby and Aubrey Beauclerk, 5th Duke of St Albans, a Whig Member of Parliament for Thetford from 1761 to 1768 and for Aldborough from 1768 to 1774.[2]
Life
[edit]Cricket
[edit]Playing cricket for Hampshire in 1817, Lord Burford then played minor cricket for the Gentlemen of Middlesex and Marylebone Cricket Club.[2]
His uncle, the Revd Lord Frederick Beauclerk, served as President of MCC for 1826/27.
Titles and estates
[edit]Succeeding in 1825 to the dukedom as Hereditary Grand Falconer of England and to the other family titles, the 9th Duke married Harriet Coutts in 1827 with a substantial dowry (of £30,000, an estate at Woodham Walter, Essex and a life interest in Holly Lodge, Middlesex and Stratton House on Piccadilly, Mayfair).
His Grace carried the Sceptre with the Cross at the coronation of William IV in 1830.
The Duke and Duchess of St Albans divided their time between Holly Lodge, Highgate or Saint Albans House on Regency Square, Brighton as well as their London townhouse and his ancestral seats in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.
When the Duchess died on 6 August 1837, she left her husband a £10,000 annuity and interests in her London properties, but these were for life only, and did not pass to his heirs. Most of the Coutts fortune went to her first husband’s grand-daughter (from his first marriage), making Angela Burdett-Coutts (later Baroness Burdett-Coutts, cr. 1871) one of the great heiresses of the Victorian age.[3]
Family
[edit]On 16 June 1827 at the Mayfair Chapel, the Duke married Mrs Harriet Coutts née Mellon (1777–1837), who was 23 years his senior. The daughter of Lieutenant Matthew Mellon (late Madras Infantry), she was an actress of Drury Lane-fame,[4] who had married firstly, the banker Thomas Coutts (having by his first wife, Susannah Starkey (1743–1815), 3 daughters).
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St Albans married secondly on 29 May 1839 at Harby, Leicestershire, Elizabeth Catherine Gubbins (1813–1893),[5] youngest daughter of Major-General Joseph Gubbins (1776–1832) of Kilfrush, County Limerick by his first wife Charlotte Bathoe (a daughter of James Bathoe). The Duke and Duchess had three children:[6]
- William Amelius Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, 10th Duke of St Albans (1840–1898), who married Sybil Mary Grey, eldest daughter of Lieutenant-General the Hon. Sir Charles Grey and granddaughter of Charles, 2nd Earl Grey, KG; after her death in 1871, he married Grace Bernal-Osborne (1848–1926), younger daughter and coheiress of Secretary of the Admiralty Ralph Bernal Osborne and granddaughter of Ralph Bernal MP[7]
- Lady Diana de Vere Beauclerk (1842–1905), who married Sir John Walter Huddleston[8] Appeared in W. P. Frith's famous painting of the marriage of the Prince of Wales in 1863 and also in his 1881 work A Private View at the Royal Academy.[9]
- Lady Charlotte Beauclerk (1849–1892).[2]
His Grace died on 27 May 1849[2] at the Holly Lodge, Highgate, Middlesex. There is a monument in his memory at Highgate Cemetery (west team) with an inscription which reads: To the memory of William Aubrey de Vere, 9th Duke of St Albans, for many years proprietor of Holly Lodge, Highgate; Born March 24th 1801, Died May 26th 1849.
After his death, the Dowager Duchess married secondly on 10 November 1859, as his second wife, Lucius Cary, 10th Viscount of Falkland, GCH (former Governor of Nova Scotia and Bombay). Lord and Lady Falkland were married until his death in 1884; the Viscountess Falkland died on 2 December 1893 at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex.[2]
Descendants
[edit]Through his only son, the 9th Duke was grandfather of Osborne Beauclerk, 12th Duke of St Albans, Lady Moyra Beauclerk (wife of Lord Richard Cavendish, grandson of William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire),[10] Lady Katherine Beauclerk (wife of Henry Somerset, a grandson of Henry Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort and secondly, Major-General the Hon. Sir William Lambton, son of George Lambton, 2nd Earl of Durham), Lady Alexandra Beauclerk and Lord William Beauclerk, who both died unmarried.[2]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ www.burkespeerage.com
- ^ a b c d e f g "St Albans, Duke of (E, 1683/4)". cracroftspeerage.co.uk. Heraldic Media Limited. Archived from the original on 3 June 2011. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
- ^ Healey, Edna (January 2012). "Burdett-Coutts, Angela Georgina, suo jure Baroness Burdett-Coutts (1814–1906)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32175. Retrieved 21 April 2014. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Haydon, Benjamin Robert (1853). Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon: Historical Painter, from His Autobiography and Journals. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. p. 353. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
- ^ Manuscripts, British Museum Department of (1889). Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years ... Order of the Trustees. p. 429. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
- ^ Dodd, Charles R. (1846). The Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, of Great Britain and Ireland, including all the Titled Classes. p. 444. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
- ^ "Bestwood Emmanuel Churchyard". Southwell & Nottingham Church History Project.
- ^ Fjågesund, Peter; Symes, Ruth A. (2003). The Northern Utopia: British Perceptions of Norway in the Nineteenth Century. Rodopi. p. 353. ISBN 9789042008465. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
- ^ Walford, Edward (1859). Hardwicke's Titles of Courtesy: containing those Members of Titled Families whose names do not fall within the scope of the Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage. p. 16. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
- ^ Walker, Dave (2 January 2014). "Costume Ball 4: Ladies only". Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Bibliography
[edit]- Donald Adamson; Peter Beauclerk Dewar, The House of Nell Gwyn. The Fortunes of the Beauclerk Family, 1670–1974, William Kimber, 1974
External links
[edit]- William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans (1801-1849) at the National Portrait Gallery, London
- www.lords.org Official Website of Lord's.