Quartered coat of arms of Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford, KG, PC
Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford, KGPC (4 August 1721 – 26 October 1803), known as Viscount Trentham from 1746 to 1754 and as The Earl Gower from 1754 to 1786, was a British politician from the Leveson-Gower family. Sitting in the House of Lords, he spent a quarter of a century in the Cabinet.
Lodge at Lilleshall Abbey, home of the Leveson family after the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Political and industrial investment career
Stafford was elected to Parliament in 1744.
With the death of his elder brother in 1746, he became known by the courtesy title of Viscount Trentham until he succeeded his father as Earl Gower in 1754. He built the earlier Lilleshall Hall, converting a 17th-century house located in the village of Lilleshall into a country residence around the late 1750s.
Stafford was associated with the faction of John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, who was his brother-in-law, and as a member of that faction, called the "Bloomsbury Gang", was given many governmental positions. Following Bedford's death in 1771, Gower became leader of the group, and as Lord President of the Council in the administration of Frederick North, Lord North, he was a key supporter of a hard-line policy towards the American colonists. Between 1775 and 1778, Stafford proceeded to make substantial alterations to his home at Trentham Hall based on the designs by Henry Holland.
By 1779, Gower resigned from the cabinet being frustrated by what he saw as the North administration's inept handling of the American Revolutionary War. When North resigned in March 1782, Gower was approached to form a ministry, but he refused, and he refused subsequent overtures from both Lord Shelburne and the Fox-North coalition to enter the government. Instead, he became a key figure in bringing about the fall of the Fox-North coalition, and was rewarded with the position of Lord President once again in the new administration of William Pitt the Younger. Although he soon exchanged this office for that of Lord Privy Seal, and gradually began to withdraw from public affairs, he remained a cabinet minister until his retirement later in 1794. In 1786, he was created Marquess of Stafford as a reward for his services.[1] He was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA) on 28 April 1784.
In 1799 he (or his immediate family benefit trust) was estimated the fifth-wealthiest small family unit in Britain, owning £2.1 million (equivalent to £260 million in 2023)), having assets in land, mining and arterial canal-toll rights having speculatively invested in the latter projects, much of which was in Staffordshire's Black Country.[2]
He died at Trentham Hall, Staffordshire, on 26 October 1803.[1] He was the last surviving member of the Bloomsbury Gang.[3]
Marriages and children
Trentham Hall, 1880
Stafford married three times. On 23 December 1744, he married firstly Elizabeth Fazakerley, daughter of Nicholas Fazakerley, with a dowry of £16,000 (equivalent to £3,441,000 in 2023). She died on 19 May 1745 of smallpox, the day after giving birth to a son, John, who died shortly after birth.[4]
When Lord Stafford died at the age of 82, he was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son Lord George, who was created Duke of Sutherland in 1833. The Marchioness of Stafford died in August 1805.[1]
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