Gerald Legge, 9th Earl of Dartmouth

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gerald Humphry Legge, 9th Earl of Dartmouth FCA (26 April 1924–14 December 1997) was a British peer and businessman.

Legge was the only son of the 8th Earl of Dartmouth. He was educated at Eton and on leaving there in 1942, he joined the Coldstream Guards as a Captain and served with them until the end of World War II (having been mentioned in despatches).

On 1 July 1948, he married Raine McCorquodale, the only child of romance novelist, Barbara Cartland and her first husband, Alexander McCorquodale. They had four children:

William, Viscount Lewisham (b. 1949)
Hon. Rupert Legge (b. 1951)
Lady Charlotte (b. 1963), married Don Alessandro Paternò Castello, 13th Duke of Carcaci
Hon. Henry Legge (b. 1968), married Cressida Hogg (youngest daughter of Sir Christopher Hogg)

Viscount Lewisham inherited his father's titles and became 9th Earl of Dartmouth in 1962; he and his wife divorced in 1976. Raine, Countess of Dartmouth then married the 8th Earl Spencer and became the stepmother of Lady Diana Spencer and her siblings. Lord Dartmouth married his second wife, Gwendoline May, four years later.

Lord Dartmouth had been a director of the farming company Rea Bros (based at Ashcombe House) from 1958–89, chairman of the Royal Choral Society from 1970–92 and chairman of the Anglo-Brazilian Society from 1975–94.

He died in 1997 and was succeeded by his eldest son, William.