Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/154

 present in 1869 at the opening of the Suez canal, which he had always supported, and accompanied the Prince of Wales to India in 1876. When, in 1876, Garibaldi visited England, he stayed with the duke at Stafford House, and on his return the duke took him as far as Caprera in his yacht. He was appointed K.G. on 30 April 1864. He died at Dunrobin Castle on 22 Sept. 1892, and was buried at Trentham in Staffordshire. He married in 1849 Anne, daughter of John Hay Mackenzie of Cromartie and Newhall, who was mistress of the robes to the queen from 1870 till 1874, and was created Countess of Cromartie in her own right, with remainder to her second surviving son Francis, the present Earl of Cromartie, in 1861; she died in 1888. The duke married secondly, in 1889, Mary Caroline, widow of Arthur Kindersley Blair and daughter of Richard Michell, D.D. [q. v.] By his first wife he had three sons and two daughters. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Cromartie, now fourth duke of Sutherland.  LEVESON-GOWER, GRANVILLE, first (1721–1803), third son of John, first Earl Gower [see under, 1675–1709] by his first wife, the Lady Evelyn Pierrepont, third daughter of Evelyn, first duke of Kingston, was born on 4 Aug. 1721, and educated at Westminster School, where, in his fifteenth year, he was admitted upon the foundation. Leaving Westminster in 1740, he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, on 30 April in that year. He did not, however, take any degree, and was returned to parliament for the borough of Bishop's Castle at a bye-election in December 1744. At the general election in 1747 he was returned at the head of the poll for the city of Westminster. On 18 Nov. 1749 he was appointed a lord of the admiralty in Pelham's administration, and was again returned for Westminster after a very severe contest with Sir George Vandeput, the tory candidate, whom he defeated by a majority of 170 votes. During the debate on the petitions against his return, in January 1751, Gower, then known by his courtesy title of Lord Trentham, made his maiden speech in the House of Commons, replying to the attacks made against him 'with great manliness and sense and sprit' (, Memoirs of George II, i.14). Having attached himself to that section of the whig party nicknamed the 'Bloomsbury Gang,' of which his brother-in-law, the fourth Duke of Bedford, was the leader, he resigned office in June 1751. At the general election in April 1754 he was returned at the head of the poll for the city of Lichfield, and on the death of his father, on 25 Dec. 1754, succeeded to the upper house as second Earl Gower. On 7 Jan. 1755 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Staffordshire, and on 22 Dec. in that year was, through the influence of the Duke of Bedford, constituted lord privy seal, in the place of the Duke of Marlborough, and at the same time was sworn a member of the privy council. Resigning the privy seal in. June 1757 he was appointed, on the 2nd of the following month, master of the horse, a post which he retained until his appointment as keeper of the great wardrobe, on 25 Nov. 1760. Fox, in a memorandum 'wrote at Lord Bute's desire and given to him March 11, 1763,' recommended Lord Gower for office, saying that he 'is of a humour and nature the most practicable; and if any man could do the office of southern secretary without either quarrelling with Charles Townshend or letting down the dignity of his own office, he would' (, Life of Shelburne, i, 187–8). In April 1763 Gower became lord chamberlain of the household, but resigned that office upon the accession of Rockingham to power in July 1765. In August 1766 Gower refused to accept Chatham's offer of a place in the ministry as first lord of the admiralty, but was afterwards induced by the Duke of Grafton to become president of the council, and kissed hands on his appointment on 23 Dec. 1767. From this time Gower took a considerable part in the debates in the House of Lords, and on 11 Feb. 1771 was elected a knight of the Garter, in the place of the Duke of Bedford, who had died in the preceding month. Though in February 1775 Gower 'declared in the most unreserved terms for reducing the Americans to submission,' opposing Chatham's provisional act for settling the troubles in America (Parl. Hist. xviii, 207–8, 211–12), and in May 1777 spoke against Chatham's motion for an address to the king to put a stop to the hostilities (ib. xix. 320-3), he altered his views in regard to the wisdom of continuing the American war, and resigned office in November 1779. On 1 Dec. following, during the debate on Shelburne's motion