Richard Grosvenor, 1st Baron Stalbridge

Richard de Aquila Grosvenor, 1st Baron Stalbridge PC (28 January 1837 – 18 May 1912), styled Lord Richard Grosvenor between 1845 and 1886, was a British politician and businessman. Initially a Liberal, he served under William Ewart Gladstone as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household between 1872 and 1874 and as Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury between 1880 and 1885. However, he broke with Gladstone over Irish Home Rule in 1886 and joined the Liberal Unionists.

Background and education

Grosvenor was the third and youngest son of Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster, and Lady Elizabeth Mary, daughter of George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland. Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, was his elder brother.^[1] He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge.^[2][3] During an adventurous youth, he toured the western United States and was present at the sack of the Summer Palace during the Second Opium War.

Political career

Grosvenor was Liberal Party Member of Parliament for Flintshire from 1861 until 1886.^[4] In 1872 he was sworn of the Privy Council and appointed Vice-Chamberlain of the Household by William Ewart Gladstone, a post he held until the government fell in 1874. When the Liberals returned to power in 1880 under Gladstone, Grosvenor was made Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury. He remained in this post until 1885. He disagreed with Gladstone over Irish Home Rule and resigned his seat in protest (by accepting appointment as a Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds) in 1886. He was subsequently raised to the peerage as Baron Stalbridge, of Stalbridge in the County of Dorset, and became a leader of the Liberal Unionist Party from the House of Lords.

Later life

On 15 April 1882, Grosvenor was appointed honorary colonel of the Dorset Yeomanry (Queen's Own), a post he held until 1895. In 1891, he was appointed chairman of the London and North Western Railway, of which he had been a director since 1870 and had eagerly promoted. In 1867 he was the head of an international committee to promote the Channel Tunnel, which contemplated a submarine railroad between England and France.^[3]

He inherited Motcombe House in 1891. The house was demolished after he contracted typhoid fever in 1894 and a new house built in 1895. However, much of the estate was sold off in 1905 to raise money, and the family moved to London. Lord Stalbridge had, in 1887, agreed to pay off some of the debts of his fellow Liberal, Lord Sudeley, and the resulting financial entanglement severely reduced his wealth.

Family

Lord Stalbridge married as his first wife the Hon. Beatrice Charlotte Elizabeth Vesey, daughter of Thomas Vesey, 3rd Viscount de Vesci, on 5 November 1874.^[1] She died of pleurisy in 1876, shortly after the birth of their only child:

• Hon. Elizabeth Emma Beatrice Grosvenor (1875–1931), married Admiral Sir Aubrey Clare Hugh Smith.

Stalbridge married his second wife, Eleanor Frances Beatrice Stubber (d. 1911), daughter of Robert Hamilton-Stubber, on 3 April 1879. They had five children:

• Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Baron Stalbridge (1880–1949), twin
• Hon. Blanche Grosvenor (1880–1964), twin, married Lieutenant-Colonel James Holford
• Hon. Gilbert Grosvenor (1881–1939), married Effie E. Cree; no issue
• Captain Hon. Richard Eustace Grosvenor, MC (1883–1915), killed in the First World War
• Hon. Eleanor Lilian Grosvenor (1885–1977), married Major Josceline Grant; mother of Elspeth Huxley

Lady Stalbridge died in March 1911. Lord Stalbridge survived her by a year and died at his London home in May 1912, aged 75. He was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son, Hugh.^[1]

References

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Richard Grosvenor