George Spencer-Churchill, 6th Duke of Marlborough (né Spencer; 27 December 1793 – 1 July 1857), styled Earl of Sunderland until 1817 and Marquess of Blandford between 1817 and 1840, was a British nobleman, politician, and peer. The great-grandfather of Sir Winston Churchill, he served as Lord-Lieutenant of Oxfordshire between 1842 and 1857.
In parliament, Blandford became an Ultra-Tory, splitting with Wellington in opposition to Catholic emancipation. In response to the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, Blandford introduced the first major reform bill in February 1830, calling for transfer of rotten borough seats to the counties and large towns, disfranchisement of non-resident voters, prevention of holders of office under the Crown from sitting in Parliament, payment of a salary to MPs, and the general franchise for men who owned property. He believed that somewhat more open elections could be relied upon to oppose Catholicism.[5]
Cricket
He played cricket as a young man and is recorded in one first-class match in 1817, totalling 4 runs with a highest score of 4.[6]
In 1845 he challenged Mr Hope and his yacht Zypheretta to a race from Yarmouth Roads around the Eddystone Lighthouse and back, a course of 224 miles, for a stake of £1000. The yachts set off on the 17th September, but encountered such heavy weather that both contestants made for port, reported in the local press as 'many a fruit schooner would have weathered the breeze, and would certainly have contested longer for the thousand pounds',[9]
Family
Lord Almeric and Lady Clementina, the children of the 6th Duke by his second wife, Charlotte Augusta Flower
His surname was Spencer until 1817, when his father changed his and his children's surname to Spencer-Churchill (by royal licence dated 26 May 1817).[10] As a young man, he and his second-cousin Harriet Caroline Octavia Spencer (1798–1831),[11] daughter of William Robert Spencer (youngest son of Lord Charles Spencer), went through a false ceremony of marriage with a relative of the groom posing as a cleric. A voyage to Scotland, where they lived as husband and wife, was intended by the bride and her parents to make this marriage legal under Scottish law. The sixth Duke did, however, successfully contest in a court of law that they had lived as if they had been married.[12]
Child by Harriet Caroline Octavia Spencer, who subsequently married her cousin, Count Karl Theodor von Westerholt (1795–1863), son of Count Alexander von Westerholt, in 1819:[11]
Susan Harriett Elizabeth Churchill (1818–1887), married Aimé Timothée Cuénod (1808–1882).
After his first wife's death in October 1844, aged 46, he married, secondly, the Hon. Charlotte Augusta Flower (1818–1850), daughter of Henry Flower, 4th Viscount Ashbrook, on 10 June 1846. They had two children:
Lord Almeric Athelstan Spencer-Churchill (1847 – 12 December 1856), died young.
Lady Clementina Augusta Spencer-Churchill (4 May 1848 – 27 March 1886), married John Pratt, 3rd Marquess Camden, and had issue.
After his second wife's death in April 1850, aged 31, he married, thirdly, his first cousin Jane Frances Clinton Stewart (1818–1897),[13] daughter of the Hon. Edward Richard Stewart and granddaughter of John Stewart, 7th Earl of Galloway, on 18 October 1851. They had one child:
Lord Edward Spencer-Churchill (28 March 1853 – 5 May 1911), married Augusta Warburton, daughter of Major George Drought Warburton, and had issue.
The 6th Duke of Marlborough died at Blenheim Palace on 1 July 1857, aged 63, and was succeeded by his eldest son, John. The Duchess of Marlborough died at 28 Grosvenor Street in Mayfair, London, in March 1897, aged 79.[1]
Sources
Mary Soames; The Profligate Duke: George Spencer Churchill, Fifth Duke of Marlborough, and His Duchess (1987)
References
^ abcdeG.E. Cokayne et al. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant (volume VIII) new ed. (1910–1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000) Pages 501–502
^Arthur Sleigh, The Royal Militia and Yeomanry Cavalry Army List, April 1850, London: British Army Despatch Press, 1850/Uckfield: Naval and Military Press, 1991, ISBN 978-1-84342-410-9, p. 27.
^Eric J. Evans, The Forging of the Modern State: Early Industrial Britain, 1783–1870 (2nd ed. 1990), p. 216
^ abMarquis Ruvigny, Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal, being a complete table of all the descendants now living of Edward III, King of England: Essex Volume (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1907), p.89.
