Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of DerbyKG (21 April 1775 – 30 June 1851), styled Lord Stanley from 1776 to 1832, and Baron Stanley of Bickerstaffe from 1832–4, was an English politician, peer, landowner, builder, farmer, art collector and naturalist. He was the patron of the writer Edward Lear.
He was commissioned Colonel of the 1st Royal Lancashire Supplementary Militia on 1 March 1797;[3] this regiment subsequently became the 2nd Royal Lancashire Militia.[4] He was breveted as a colonel in the regular Army with seniority from that date, retaining the rank until his regiment was disembodied,[5] which occurred at the end of 1799.[4] He resigned his commission as colonel on 13 April 1847.
Naturalist
In 1834 he succeeded his father as 13th Earl of Derby and withdrew from politics, instead concentrating on his natural history collection at Knowsley Hall, near Liverpool. He had a large collection of living animals:[6] at his death, there were 1,272 birds and 345 mammals at Knowsley, shipped to England by explorers such as Joseph Burke. From 1828 to 1833 he was President of the Linnean Society. Many of Derby's collections are now housed in Liverpool's World Museum. Several species were named after him, for example the Derbyan parakeet, Psittacula derbiana and an Australian species of parrot named firstly by Nicholas Vigors as Platycercus stanleyii, in 1830 when he was Lord Stanley, and referred to in the vernacular as "The Earl of Derby’s Parrakeet" by the author John Gould in the sixth volume of his magnum opusBirds of Australia. However the latter species was found to have been named previously as Platycercus icterotis, and thus Platycercus stanleyii was found to have been an invalid name due to the pre-existence of a published description for the species, according to "the inviolable laws of precedence in deliberations on biological nomenclature".[7] From the Earl of Derby's Collection, the State Library of NSW purchased six volumes of exquisite Australian natural history drawings dating from the early days of British settlement in NSW and this Library publishes talks and exhibitions of its research on this collection.[8]
He founded in 1851 with his natural history's collection a museum in Liverpool, the Derby Museum, the current World Museum, the oldest of the National Museums Liverpool group.
Marriage and issue
On 30 June 1798, Smith-Stanley married his cousin Charlotte Margaret Hornby (d.1817), second daughter of Rev. Geoffrey Hornby (1750–1812), of Scale Hall, near Lancaster[9] in Lancashire, High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1774 and a Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire, Colonel of a regiment of Lancashire militia, by his wife Hon. Lucy Smith-Stanley (d.1833), the earl's aunt and a daughter of James Smith-Stanley, Lord Strange (1716–1771).[10] Charlotte's brother was Edmund Hornby (1773–1857) of Dalton Hall, near Burton, Westmorland, a Member of Parliament for Preston, Lancashire, from 1812–1826, who married the earl's sister Lady Charlotte Stanley (d.1805).[11]
Hon. Emily Lucy Smith-Stanley (2 May – 15 November 1804), died in infancy
Hon. Louisa Emily Stanley (1 June 1805 – 11 December 1825), married in June 1825 Lt.-Col. Samuel Long
Lady Eleanor Mary Smith-Stanley (3 May 1807 – 11 September 1887), married in 1835 Rev. Frank George Hopwood, Rector of Winwick, Lancashire
Colonel Hon. Charles James Fox Stanley (25 April 1808 – 13 October 1884), married in 1836 Frances Augusta, daughter of Gen. Sir Henry Frederick Campbell
He died on 30 June 1851 at his seat, Knowsley Hall.[13]
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Burke'sGenealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, 15th Edition, ed. Pirie-Gordon, H., London, 1937, p.1155, pedigree of "Hornby of Dalton Hall"