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GraftonDuke4

Page history last edited by R H Johnston 15 years, 6 months ago

George Henry, 4th Duke of Grafton 1760-1844

Information on this page quoted from http://www.tbheritage.com/Breeders/Grafton/Grafton2.html

 

Although he served as an M.P. for 29 years, the 4th Duke of Grafton was most noted as a sportsman. Universally liked, and widely admired by the sporting writers of his day, he generally managed to avoid controversy and political intrigue, living, no doubt, the life his father would have wished for himself. He defied his father in marrying by licence, in 1784, Charlotte Maria Waldegrave, Horace Walpole's niece and granddaughter of Sir Edward Walpole by his mistress, Dorothy Clements. Being a charming and attractive young woman, she eventually won over her father-in-law, who had objected to importing more strains of bastardy into the family line.

 

The 4th Duke, then Lord Euston, was friends with Pitt the Younger, having been fellow undergraduates at Cambridge. The two stood together to defeat Lord John Townshend and the future Chief Justice Mansfield in the elections of 1784 (for Cambridge). He acceded to the title upon the death of his father in 1811, at the age of 51. He was noted for his dry wit and sense of humour. After the conclusion of a meeting of Opposition peers in 1812, a colleague turned to him to ask, "What is to be done next" "Wake the Duke of Norfolk who is snoring away near us," the Duke responded.

 

His political interests were less conservative than his father's, and as M.P. he generally, but not always, supported policies propounded by his friend Pitt.

 

The Duke was famous for dressing whimsically, with a tall hat, brightly coloured frock coat and tightly strapped trousers, and always carrying a tightly-rolled umbrella under his arm at public gatherings. His son, Henry, born in 1790, succeeded to the Dukedom upon his death in 1844.

 

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