Hugh Percy, 3rd Duke of Northumberland
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Hugh Percy, 3rd Duke of Northumberland (20 April 1785 – 11 February 1847) was a British aristocrat and Tory politician who served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland under the Duke of Wellington from 1829 to 1830.
Hugh Percy was educated at Eton and Cambridge. He entered parliament as the member for Buckingham in July 1806. In September of that year he was elected member for the City of Westminster, on the death of Charles James Fox. He declined to fight the seat at the general election two months later, instead being returned for Launceston. In 1807 he offered himself as a candidate for the county of Northumberland in opposition to Charles, Lord Howick (afterwards the 2nd Earl Grey), who declined to contest the seat. Percy was returned unopposed, and continued to sit until 1812, when he was called to the House of Lords by the title Baron Percy.[1]
In 1817 he succeeded his father as Duke of Northumberland. In the same year he married Lady Charlotte Florentia Clive, eldest daughter of Earl Powys. (She was later to be appointed governess of Princess Victoria, the later Queen Victoria). He served as Ambassador Extraordinary at the coronation of Charles X of France in 1825, defraying the expenses thereof himself, and he "astonished the continental nobility of the magnitude of his retinue, the gorgeousness of his equippage, and the profuseness of his liberality". in March 1829 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In November 1834 he was elected high Steward of the university of Cambridge, holding that honour until 1840 when he was made Chancellor of the University.[1]
He played a prominent role in the establishment of the Church Building Society responsible for building the so-called "Waterloo churches" during the early 19th century. He proposed the CBS's formation at a meeting in the Freemasons' Hall, London on 6 February 1818, chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Society lobbied parliament to provide funding for a church building programme, and parliament subsequently passed the Church Building Act, voting £l,000,000 to the cause.
He also played a part in the development of football (soccer) in a time when it was a controversial game by providing a field for the annual Alnwick Shrove Tuesday game and presenting the ball before the match — a ritual that continues to this day.
He died at Alnwick, and his remains were transported to London by train on the 19th February, to be interred in Westminster Abbey on the 23rd February. In August 1851 an altar monument to the Duke was placed in St. Paul's Church, Alnwick.[1]
