Marquess of Lansdowne

Marquessate of Lansdowne
Arms of the Marquess of Lansdowne

Blazon

Arms: Quarterly : 1st and 4th Ermine, on a bend, azure a magnetic needle pointing at a polar star, or, (Petty); 2nd and 3rd Argent, a saltier, gules, a chief, ermine (Fitzmaurice).

Crests: 1st, a beehive beset with bees, diversely volant, proper ; 2nd, a centaur drawing a bow and arrow, proper, the part from the waist argent

Supporters: Two pegasi, ermine.; bridled, crined, winged, and unguled, or, each charged on the shoulder with a fienr-de-lis, azure.

Motto: Virtute non verbis (By courage, not words).

Creation date6 December 1784
Created byGeorge III
PeeragePeerage of Great Britain
First holderWilliam Petty Fitzmaurice, 2nd Earl of Shelburne
Present holderCharles Petty-Fitzmaurice, 9th Marquess of Lansdowne
Heir apparentSimon Petty-Fitzmaurice, Earl of Kerry
Remainder to1st Marquess' heirs male of the body lawfully begotten
Subsidiary titlesEarl of Kerry
Earl of Shelburne
Earl of Wycombe
Viscount Clanmaurice
Viscount Fitzmaurice
Viscount Calne and Calston
Baron of Kerry and Lixnaw
Baron Dunkeron
Baron Wycombe of Chipping Wycombe
SeatBowood House
Former seatsLansdowne House, Meikleour House
MottoVIRTUTE NON VERBIS
(By courage, not words)

Marquess of Lansdowne is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain created in 1784, and held by the head of the Petty-Fitzmaurice family. The first Marquess served as Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Origins

This branch of the Fitzmaurice family descends from John Fitzmaurice, second son of Thomas Fitzmaurice, 1st Earl of Kerry (see Earl of Kerry for earlier history of the family), and his wife Anne, the daughter of the political economist Sir William Petty, whose wife had been created Baroness Shelburne for her own life only and whose two sons had been created at different times Baron Shelburne in the Peerage of Ireland and Earl of Shelburne respectively, but who had both died without heirs. In 1751, on the death of his maternal uncle Henry Petty, Earl of Shelburne, John FitzMaurice succeeded to his estates and assumed by a private act of Parliament, FitzMaurice's Name Act 1750 (24 Geo. 2. c. 43 Pr.), the surname of Petty in addition to FitzMaurice. That same year, he was created Viscount FitzMaurice and Baron Dunkeron in the Peerage of Ireland. In 1753, the earldom held by his uncle was revived when he was made Earl of Shelburne, in the County of Wexford, in the Peerage of Ireland. He later represented Wycombe in the House of Commons as a Whig, his Irish peerages not disbarring him. However, in 1760 Viscount FitzMaurice was created Baron Wycombe, of Chepping Wycombe in the County of Buckingham, in the Peerage of Great Britain, which gave him a seat in the House of Lords at Westminster and meant that he could no longer sit in the Commons.

Through his first wife Lady Sophia Carteret (1745–1771), only daughter of Robert Carteret, 3rd Earl Granville, Fitzmaurice acquired large estates, including Lansdowne Hill near Bath, from which his son later took a new title.

From 1765 until the Reform Act 1832, the head of the family controlled the two seats in parliament of the pocket borough of Calne in Wiltshire. After 1832, there was only one seat and a wider franchise, but a member of the family was usually elected until the borough was abolished in 1885.

Creations

The first Earl of Shelburne of the new creation was succeeded by his eldest son William Petty-FitzMaurice, 2nd Earl of Shelburne. He was a prominent statesman and served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1782 to 1783. His brother Thomas FitzMaurice (1742–1793) of Cliveden, was a Member of Parliament. In 1784, the second Earl of Shelburne was created Marquess of Lansdowne, in the County of Somerset, Earl of Wycombe, of Chepping Wycombe, and Viscount Calne and Calston, referring to Calne and Calstone in the County of Wiltshire, all in the Peerage of Great Britain. However, he is better known to history under his former title of Earl of Shelburne. He was succeeded by his son from his first marriage to Lady Sophia Carteret, John Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 2nd Marquess of Lansdowne. He died childless in 1809 and was succeeded by his half-brother, the third Marquess, the son of their father’s second marriage, to Lady Louisa FitzPatrick. Known as Lord Henry Petty from 1784 to 1809, he was one of the most influential Whig politicians of the first half of the 19th century. In a ministerial career spanning over fifty years, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1806 to 1807, as Home Secretary from 1827 to 1828, as Lord President of the Council from 1830 to 1834, 1835 to 1841, and 1846 to 1852, and as Minister without Portfolio from 1852 to 1858. He twice declined to become Prime Minister and in 1857 refused the offer of a dukedom from Queen Victoria. In 1818 Lansdowne also succeeded his cousin as fourth Earl of Kerry. His eldest son William Petty FitzMaurice, Earl of Kerry, was a Member of Parliament for Calne, but predeceased his father, without having a son. Lansdowne was therefore succeeded by his second son, the fourth Marquess. He had already in 1856 been summoned to the House of Lords through a writ of acceleration in his father's junior title of Baron Wycombe and served under Lord Palmerston as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1856 to 1858. He married as his second wife Emily Jane Mercer-Elphinstone-de Flahault, 8th Lady Nairne (see the Lord Nairne), eldest daughter of the French general and statesman Charles Joseph, comte de Flahaut, and his wife Margaret Nairne, 7th Lady Nairne.

Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne

He was succeeded by his eldest son from his second marriage, the fifth Marquess. Like his grandfather, he was a prominent statesman and had an equally long ministerial career. Lord Lansdowne was Governor General of Canada from 1883 to 1888, Viceroy of India from 1888 to 1894, Secretary of State for War from 1895 to 1900, Foreign Secretary from 1900 to 1905, Leader of the Conservative Party in the Lords from 1911 to 1916, and also served in the war-time coalition government as Minister without Portfolio from 1915 to 1916. In 1895 he succeeded his mother as Lord Nairne. His eldest son, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, sat as Unionist Member of Parliament for West Derbyshire from 1908 to 1918 and was a Senator of the Irish Free State in 1922. In 1927 he succeeded his father and became the 6th Marquess.

On his death in 1936 he was succeeded by his second but eldest surviving son, the seventh Marquess, who was killed in action in 1944 during the Second World War, unmarried. As the third and youngest brother, Lord Edward Norman Petty-Fitzmaurice, had been killed in action only a week before, the Scottish lordship of Nairne was passed on to their eldest sister Katherine (see Lord Nairne for later history of this title). Lord Lansdowne was survived in the remaining titles by his first cousin, the eighth Marquess. He was the son of Major Lord Charles George Francis Mercer Nairne Petty-Fitzmaurice (1874–1914), second son of the fifth Marquess. Born George John Charles Mercer Nairne, he assumed by Decree of the Lord Lyon the additional surnames of Petty-Fitzmaurice in 1947. Lord Lansdowne sat on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords and served as Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1958 to 1962 and as Minister of State for Colonial Affairs from 1962 to 1964. As of 2014 the titles are held by his eldest son, the ninth Marquess, who succeeded in 1999.

The courtesy title for the Lord Lansdowne's eldest son and heir apparent alternates between Earl of Kerry and Earl of Shelburne.

Estates and residences

Country seat

The family seat is Bowood House, near Calne, Wiltshire. A major late-1990s/early-2000s housing development in the northwest of Calne was named Lansdowne Park after the local seat.

Estates

In the 1883 edition of John Bateman's The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne's estates were recorded as spanning 142,916 acres across England, Ireland and Scotland, including 11,145 acres in Wiltshire, 4 acres in Hampshire, 94,983 acres in County Kerry, 12,995 acres in County Meath, 8,980 acres in Queen's County, 2,132 acres in County Dublin, 1,642 acres in County Limerick, 617 acres in King's County, 9,070 acres in Perthshire, and 1,348 acres in Kinross-shire, which produced a combined annual income of £62,025. Bateman noted that the Scottish properties, comprising 10,418 acres and producing £8,811 annually, belonged to Emily, Dowager Marchioness of Lansdowne, widow of the 4th Marquess.

London residences

Lansdowne House, the London residence of the Marquesses of Lansdowne from the 18th century until 1929

From 1768 to 1921 the family's principal London residence was Lansdowne House, situated at the south-west corner of Berkeley Square in Mayfair. The house was commissioned in 1761 by John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, from the architect Robert Adam, but was sold while still unfinished in 1765 to William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, later the 1st Marquess of Lansdowne. Shelburne retained Adam to complete the house, and moved there with his family in 1768. Following his creation as Marquess of Lansdowne in 1784 the residence became known as Lansdowne House.

Successive generations of the family altered and enlarged the house. George Dance the Younger remodelled several interiors for the 1st Marquess during the 1790s, while Robert Smirke carried out further alterations between 1816 and 1819 for Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne. Later additions included a sculpture gallery designed by Thomas Henry Wyatt during the 1870s. Under the 3rd Marquess, one of the leading Whig statesmen of the 19th century, Lansdowne House became an important centre of political and social life. Following the destruction of the old Palace of Westminster by fire in 1834, its dining room was used for meetings of the Privy Council until 1852.

Lansdowne House remained the property of the Petty-Fitzmaurice family throughout the 19th century and served as the London residence of Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne during his long political career, including his periods as Foreign Secretary and leader of the Conservative opposition in the House of Lords. After the First World War the family ceased to occupy the house regularly, and the 5th Marquess subsequently leased it to the department-store proprietor Harry Gordon Selfridge in February 1921. The house passed out of the family's ownership in 1929, shortly after the succession of the 6th Marquess.

The building was substantially altered in 1931–32, when part of the original house was demolished to permit the construction of Fitzmaurice Place. Several important interiors were dismantled: Adam's principal drawing room was transferred to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, while the former dining room was installed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The surviving portion of the house was adapted for club use and opened as the Lansdowne Club in 1935. It remains a Grade II* listed building.

Earls of Shelburne (1753)

Marquesses of Lansdowne (1784)

The heir apparent is the present holder's son, Simon Henry George Petty-Fitzmaurice, Earl of Kerry (b. 1970)
The heir apparent's heir apparent is his son George Henry Charles Petty-Fitzmaurice, Viscount Calne and Calstone (b. 2020)

Family tree

Line of succession

Middleton connection

It was reported in 2012 that the direct descendants of Thomas FitzMaurice, brother of the first Marquess, included brothers Lieut. Osmund Fitzmaurice Bullock and Sir Christopher Bullock and that Sir Christopher's wife, Lady Bullock (née Barbara May Lupton), was a second cousin of Olive Middleton (née Lupton), the great grandmother of the Princess of Wales.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Burke's Peerage and Baronetage. 1899. pp. 1190–1193.
  2. ↑ Debrett's Peerage, 1876 p.281
  3. ↑ Deed Poll Office: Private Act of Parliament 1750 (24 Geo. 2). c. 43
  4. ↑ "No. 9095". The London Gazette. 24 September 1751. p. 2.
  5. ↑ "No. 9273". The London Gazette. 5 June 1753. p. 2.
  6. ↑ "No. 10001". The London Gazette. 20 May 1760. p. 1.
  7. ↑ "No. 12599". The London Gazette. 30 November 1784. p. 1.
  8. ↑ Bateman, John (1883). The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland. London: Harrison. p. 259. Retrieved 21 September 2026 – via Internet Archive.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "History". The Lansdowne Club. Retrieved 21 September 2026.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Historic England, "Lansdowne Club (1066795)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 21 September 2026
  11. ↑ "Lansdowne House Let". The Daily Telegraph. 18 February 1921. p. 9. Retrieved 21 September 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ Brownhill, J. (1929). "Kerry, and Kerry and Lixnaw". In Cokayne, George Edward; Doubleday, H. A.; Howard de Walden, Lord (eds.). The Complete Peerage. Vol. VII (revised ed.). London: St Catherine's Press. pp. 201–216.
  13. ↑ O'Hart, John (1923). "Redmond (No. 1)". Irish pedigrees; or, The origin and stem of the Irish nation. New York: Murphy & McCarthy. pp. 355–357.
  14. ↑ Morris, Susan; Bosberry-Scott, Wendy; Belfield, Gervase, eds. (2019). "Lansdowne, Marquess of". Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage. Vol. 1 (150th ed.). London: Debrett's. pp. 3283–3297. ISBN 978-1-9997-6705-1.
  15. ↑ Fox-Davies, A. (1910). Armorial Families: A Directory of Gentlemen of Coat-armour. C. & E.C. Jack. p. 219. Sir Alex. Spearman, Bart, P.C.; and has issue-(1) Walter Llewellyn Bullock, Gentleman, b. 1890; (2) Christopher Llewellyn Bullock, Gentleman, b. 1891; (3) Osmund FitzMaurice Llewellyn Bullock, Gentleman, b. 1905;
  16. ↑ Nikkhah, Roya (16 December 2012). "Duchess discovers blue blood in her own family". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 23 November 2014.
  17. ↑ "Air Crash off Scots Coast". Dundee Courier. 3 October 1933. Retrieved 16 August 2015. Two men were killed in an air accident off Tarbet Ness, Ross-shire, yesterday. They were Lieutenant Osmond Fitzmaurice Llewellyn Bullock, Royal Navy, officer of the Royal Air Force, (and brother of Sir Christopher, and) the pilot of the aircraft...
  18. ↑ Westcott, Sarah (17 December 2012). "Family tree reveals Duchess of Cambridge Kate MIddleton's aristocratic roots". Daily Express. UK. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
  19. ↑ Nicholl, Katie (13 December 2013). Kate: The Future Queen. Weinstein Books. ISBN 9781602862470. Retrieved 16 August 2015. (Michael Middleton's family were) linked to earls, countesses, a former Prime Minister – William Petty-FitzMaurice, the first Marquess of Lansdowne, who served as Prime Minister...

Sources