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

Background and education

Born at Richmond House, London, he was the eldest son of Charles Lennox, 5th Duke of Richmond, and his wife Lady Caroline Paget, eldest daughter of Field Marshal Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey.

He was educated at Westminster School before going up to Christ Church, Oxford, and played for Oxford University, being awarded Hon. DCL in 1870.

Commissioned into the Royal Horse Guards in 1839, he served as Aide-de-Camp to the Duke of Wellington from 1842 until 1854. Born with the surname Lennox, when his father inherited the Gordon estates from his uncle, the family took the additional surname Gordon-Lennox, by Royal Licence dated 9 August 1836.[1]

Landowner of 286,000 acres mostly in Banff, Aberdeen and Inverness, in Sussex he owned 17,000 acres. By 1883, the Duke of Richmond had an income of £80,000 a year from his English and Scottish estates.[2]

Political career

"Highly respectable". Vanity Fair caricature by ATn, 1870.

March entered politics as MP for West Sussex in 1841, and was sworn of the Privy Council in 1859. In 1860, he succeeded his father as Duke of Richmond, taking his seat in the House of Lords.[3] He chaired the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, which reported in 1866, and the Royal Commission on Water Supply in 1869, which reported overall planning of water supplies for domestic use had become necessary.[4]

Invested as a Knight of the Garter in 1867, the Duke of Richmond served as a government minister in the Conservative administrations of Lord Derby, Disraeli and the Marquess of Salisbury.[5] Recognised for his public service, in 1876, by being created Duke of Gordon and Earl of Kinrara in the Peerage of the United Kingdom,[3] he was Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen from 1861 until his death at Gordon Castle in 1903.

Richmond served as Lord-Lieutenant of Banffshire and Chairman of West Sussex County Council, having (as Earl of March) been President of Marylebone Cricket Club in 1842 (like his father-in-law in 1828).[6]

Family

He married Frances Harriett Greville (1824–1887), daughter of Algernon Greville, on 28 November 1843. The Duke and Duchess had six children:

Ancestry

Ancestors of Charles Gordon-Lennox, 6th Duke of Richmond
8. Lord George Lennox
4. Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond
9. Lady Louisa Kerr
2. Charles Gordon-Lennox, 5th Duke of Richmond
10. Alexander Gordon, 4th Duke of Gordon
5. Lady Charlotte Gordon
11. Jane Maxwell
1. Charles Gordon-Lennox, 6th Duke of Richmond
12. Henry Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge
6. Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey
13. Jane Champagné
3. Lady Caroline Paget
14. George Villiers, 4th Earl of Jersey
7. Lady Caroline Elizabeth Villiers
15. Frances Twysden

See also

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ "No. 19409". The London Gazette. 12 August 1836. p. 1441.
  2. ↑ The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland
  3. 1 2 Wikisource 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.
  4. ↑ Porter 1978, p. 24.
  5. ↑ McNeill, Ronald John (1911). "Richmond, Earls and Dukes of" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 307.
  6. ↑ www.burkespeerage.com
  7. ↑ "Lady Caroline Gordon Lennox". Gordon Chapel. Archived from the original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Gordon-Lennox,_6th_Duke_of_Richmond