Charles_Henry_Gordon-Lennox,_6th_Duke_of_Richmond

Charles Gordon-Lennox, 6th Duke of Richmond

Charles Gordon-Lennox, 6th Duke of Richmond

British politician (1818–1903)

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 the Earl of March until 1860, was a British Conservative politician.

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Background and education

Born at Richmond House, London, he was the son of Charles Lennox, 5th Duke of Richmond, and his wife Lady Caroline (née Paget), daughter of Field Marshal Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey. He was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, where he had a short career as a cricketer. He served in the Royal Horse Guards and was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington. Charles was born with the surname Lennox; when his father inherited the Gordon estates from his uncle, the father took the surname Gordon-Lennox for himself and his issue, by royal licence dated 9 August 1836.[1]

He owned 286,000 acres mostly in Banff, Aberdeen and Inverness. His Sussex holdings were 17,000 acres. By 1883, he had an income of £80,000 a year.[2]

Political career

"Highly respectable". Caricature by ATn published in Vanity Fair in 1870.

March entered politics as member for West Sussex in 1841. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1859. In 1860, he succeeded his father as Duke of Richmond and entered the House of Lords. He chaired the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, which reported in 1866, and the Royal Commission on Water Supply in 1869, which concluded that there was a need for some sort of overall planning of water supplies for domestic use.[3]

He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1867, and filled various positions in government in the Conservative administrations of the Earl of Derby, Disraeli and the marquess of Salisbury.[4] In 1876 he was rewarded for his public service by being created Duke of Gordon and Earl of Kinrara in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.[5] He was also Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen from 1861 until his death at Gordon Castle in 1903.

Family

49 Belgrave Square, his London house

Richmond married Frances Harriett Greville, daughter of Algernon Greville, on 28 November 1843. They had six children:

Ancestry

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Bibliography

  • Porter, Elizabeth (1978). Water Management in England and Wales. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-21865-8.
  • Torrance, David (2006). The Scottish Secretaries. Birlinn. ISBN 978-1-84158-476-8.

References

  1. [1]
    "No. 19409". The London Gazette. 12 August 1836. p. 1441.
  2. [2]
    The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland
  3. [3]
    Porter 1978, p. 24.
  4. [4]
    McNeill, Ronald John (1911). "Richmond, Earls and Dukes of" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 307.
  5. [5]
     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.
  6. [6]
    "Lady Caroline Gordon Lennox". Gordon Chapel. Archived from the original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
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