Edward Villiers, 5th Earl of Clarendon

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Edward Hyde Villiers, 5th Earl of Clarendon PC (11 February 18462 October 1914), known as Lord Hyde between 1846 and 1870, was a British Liberal Unionist politician.

Clarendon was the eldest son of the prominent Liberal statesman George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon and his wife Lady Katherine Grimston, daughter of James Walter Grimston, 1st Earl of Verulam. He was elected to Parliament for Brecon in 1869, a seat he retained until the following year, when he succeeded his father in the earldom and took his seat in the House of Lords. In 1895 Lord Clarendon was appointed a government whip in the Conservative administration of Lord Salisbury, a position he held until 1900, when he was promoted to Lord Chamberlain of the Household and admitted to the Privy Council. He retained this office also when Arthur Balfour became Prime Minister in 1902. The government fell in December 1905 and Clarendon was never to return to office.

Apart from his political career Lord Clarendon was also Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire from 1892 to 1914.

He married firstly, Lady Caroline Agar, daughter of James Agar, 3rd Earl of Normanton, on 6 September 1876. After his first wife's death in 1894 he married secondly, Emma Hatch, on 5 August 1908. By his first marriage he had two children:

Lord Clarendon died in October 1914, aged 68, and was succeeded in the earldom by his only son George Herbert Hyde Villiers


Political offices
Preceded by:
The Earl of Hopetoun
Lord Chamberlain of the Household
1900–1905
Succeeded by:
The Viscount Althorp
Peerage of Great Britain
Preceded by:
George Villiers
Earl of Clarendon Succeeded by:
George Villiers