Charles Robert Wynn-Carington, 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire, KG, GCMG, PC, JP, DL (16 May 1843 – 13 June 1928), known as the Lord Carrington from 1868 to 1895, and as the Earl Carrington from 1895 to 1912, was a British Liberal politician and aristocrat. He was Governor of New South Wales from 1885 to 1890.[1]
On his mother's death in 1879 he became joint hereditaryLord Great Chamberlain of England.[4][1] Born Charles Carrington, he and his two brothers assumed by royal licence the surname of Carington in 1880. In 1896 he assumed by royal licence the surname of Wynn-Carington.
In early 1901 he was appointed by King Edward VII to lead a special diplomatic mission to announce the King's accession to the governments of France, Spain, and Portugal.[10] He also bore St Edward's Staff at the coronation of King Edward VII.[1]
A noted land reformer, Carrington was a supporter of Lloyd George's redistributive "People's Budget", which he regarded as "bold, Liberal and humane".[13]
Freemasonry
He was initiated into Isaac Newton University Lodge No. 859, Cambridge, on 28 October 1861 at the age of 18, passed in Cairo some eight years later, and raised in Royal York Lodge of Perseverance No. 7 on 6 October 1875. On 3 January 1882 he became a member of Royal Alpha Lodge No. 16. Even though he was not a past Master of a Lodge, he was appointed Senior Grand Warden of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1882.
When he became Governor of New South Wales, he found a rivalry of lodges working under the United Grand Lodge of England and the Grand Lodge of Scotland as well as lodges working under the locally formed (1877) Grand Lodge of New South Wales.[14] Trying to unite the lodges, he became firstly District Grand Master of New South Wales, and then the first Grand Master of the newly consecrated United Grand Lodge of New South Wales. However, as he had still not yet been installed as a Worshipful Master, he was first made Worshipful Master at sight of the Lodge Ionic No. 15. Nine senior Masons were present, including Samuel Way. In 1890 he was appointed Provincial Grand Master of Buckinghamshire and after serving five years, he was made Grand Representative in England of the United Grand Lodge of New South Wales.[15]
Family
Viscount Wendover (Albert Edward Charles Robert Wynn-Carington, 1895–1915) named on a memorial to the members of the Smiths' banking family who died in the World Wars
Carrington married the Hon. Cecilia Margaret Harbord (1856–1934), daughter of Charles Harbord, 5th Baron Suffield, and Cecilia Annetta Baring, in 1878.[1] They had one son and five daughters. Their only son, Albert Edward Charles Robert Wynn-Carington, Viscount Wendover (1895–1915), died on 19 May 1915 of complications following the amputation of an arm when he was wounded in the fighting at Ypres during World War I.[16]
In addition to family life, Lord Carrington was logged by the police for homosexual activity: his name appears in one of the notebooks of the high-profile Scotland Yard detective Donald Swanson.[17]
Having earlier sold his ancestral home, Wycombe Abbey (which became a private girls' boarding-school), Lincolnshire died at his home, Daws Hill House, High Wycombe, on 13 June 1928. The baronies (but not his other titles) passed to his younger brother, Rupert. The marquessate, earldom and viscountcy became extinct.[18] Cecilia, Marchioness of Lincolnshire, died in 1934, aged 78.
Cousins Tiggy and Eleanor Legge-Bourke are his descendants through his fifth daughter; they are both granddaughters of politician Sir Harry Legge-Bourke, only son of Lt. Nigel Legge-Bourke.[19][20][21]
Ancestry
Ancestors of Charles Wynn-Carington, 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire
^LEGGE-BOURKE, Sir Edward Alexander Henry in Who Was Who 1971–1980 (London, A. & C. Black, 1989 reprint: ISBN0-7136-3227-5).
^Mosley, C. (ed.), Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition (Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003), vol. 1, p. 1039.
Bibliography
Adonis, Andrew (December 1988). "Aristocracy, Agriculture and Liberalism: the Politics, Finances and Estates of the third Lord Carrington". Historical Journal. 31 (4).
Martin, A. W. (1969). "Carington, Charles Robert (1843–1928)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 22 April 2016.
Mayes, Leonard John (1960), The History of Chairmaking in High Wycombe, London: Routledge & K. Paul, OCLC4378040
Venn, J. A. (1953). Alumni Cantabrigienses, part 2, 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). p. 545
