The Grenville Armorial produced between 1822 and 1839 for Richard Temple-Grenville, Marquess of Chandos, the son of the 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. The centrepiece of the Gothic Library at Stowe House, it shows 719 quarterings of the family.
Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, KG, GCH, PC, FSA (11 February 1797 – 29 July 1861), styled Viscount Cobham from birth until 1813, Earl Temple between 1813 and 1822 and Marquess of Chandos between 1822 and 1839, was a British Tory politician. He served as Lord Privy Seal between 1841 and 1842.
Two events in his life were remarkable, given the era he lived in and the position he held in society as a duke: firstly, he obtained a divorce at a time when it required an Act of Parliament; secondly, despite the great wealth to which he was born, he declared bankruptcy with debts of over a million pounds in 1847.
Buckingham was associated with "T71/865 St Andrew claim no. 114 (Hope Estate)", for 379 slaves in Jamaica. The claim was made by his father, the 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, but it was denied, as it was subject to a marriage settlement for the heir and his wife. The compensation was instead awarded to the Trustees of that settlement, who received a £6,630 payment at the time, to the 2nd Duke's benefit.[6]
Financial affairs
In 1847, eight years after succeeding his father as Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, the second Duke was declared bankrupt, with debts over a million pounds (£115 million as of 2025). This occasioned the sale of his Keynsham estate in Somerset in 1841, Avington Park in 1847 and ultimately the auction sale of the contents of the main family seat at Stowe House in August–September 1848, one of the handful of most prominent English country house contents auctions of the 19th century. The financial ruin of so prominent a member of the aristocracy, who had inherited an income of more than £70,000, a vast fortune at the time, became a national sensation.[7]
Buckingham died at the Great Western Hotel, Paddington, London, in July 1861, aged 64, and was succeeded in the dukedom by his only son. His former wife died less than a year later in June 1862, aged 66.[2]
^Elizabeth Crawford, 'Langton, Lady Anna Eliza Mary Gore- (1820–1879)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 7 Nov 2017
Bibliography
Spring, David & Spring, Eileen (1956). "The Fall of the Grenvilles, 1844–1848". Huntington Library Quarterly. 19 (2): 165–190. doi:10.2307/3816224. JSTOR3816224.
