Ernest Edgcumbe, 3rd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe

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Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, 3rd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe (March 23, 1797 - September 3, 1861 ) was a British peer , courtier and politician.

Origin and youth

Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe came from the Edgcumbe family . As the second son of Richard Edgcumbe, 2nd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe and his wife Sophia Hobart , a military career was determined for him. He attended Harrow School until 1811 and then the Royal Military College at Sandhurst.

Military career

In 1814 Edgcumbe joined the Foot Guards regiment as an ensign and fought in the Battle of Waterloo and was promoted to lieutenant. When he became his father's heir after the death of his older brother William Edgcumbe in 1818, he retired from military service in 1819.

Political activity

As his father's apparent marriage , Edgcumbe carried the courtesy title Viscount Valletort . His brother had lost the candidacy for Borough Fowey in the 1818 general election, but on March 5, 1819 it was decided that his election had been legitimate. Then there was a by-election on March 24th, which Mathias Attwood won. However, this did not accept the election, whereupon Edgcumbe was confirmed as MP on May 11th. In the House of Commons , he was considered a silent supporter of Lord Liverpool's government . In the general election in March 1820, he was re-elected unchallenged. In 1821 he took over the post of chief of the militia of Cornwall . As Tory , he voted against Catholic emancipation in 1821 and against an electoral reform bill in 1823. At the beginning of 1824 he apparently suffered a serious accident, so that he rarely took part in the votes in the House of Commons that year. From 1825 he was one of the supporters of Catholic emancipation. In the interest of the port of near the family home Mount Edgcumbe located Stonehouse he voted for an amendment to the Corn Laws . Since he feared in the general election in 1826 that he would not be re-elected for Fowey, he ran successfully for Lostwithiel , where he had held the office of mayor in 1823. In 1828 he supported a petition against slavery put forward by citizens of Lostwithiel. In July 1830 he turned down the office of Vice Chamberlain of the Household , but could be persuaded to serve as aide-de-camp for King William IV . In the general election in the summer of 1830 he was elected with the support of his father as MP for Plympton Alder , but when a mandate for Lostwithiel became vacant, he ran there successfully in a by-election in December 1830. In the general election in May 1831 he ran unsuccessfully as Knight of the Shire for Cornwall, but he had already run successfully for Lostwithiel in April, so he was able to maintain this mandate. A representative of such small boroughs as Lostwithiel and Plympton, he remained one of the fiercest opponents of electoral reform , and before it was passed in 1832 he withdrew from the House of Commons.

After the death of King Wilhelm IV in 1837, he also served the new Queen Victoria as an aide-de-camp until 1857, while his wife served the Queen as a lady-in-waiting. After his father's death in 1839 he inherited the family estates and the title Earl of Mount Edgcumbe , making him a member of the House of Lords .

Others

In 1855 he built a new, spacious winter villa in Stonehouse near Plymouth because the previous family residence, Mount Edgcumbe House, was too old-fashioned for him and the ferry crossing from Plymouth there was too difficult due to his poor health. He died shortly after the completion of his new villa on September 3, 1861. After his death, however, the villa was rarely used by the family, rented out in 1900, sold in 1927 and finally demolished in 1975.

Family and offspring

Edgcumbe had married Caroline Fielding , the eldest daughter of Rear Admiral Charles Feilding , on December 6, 1831 . His wife was a half-sister of the photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot , with whom she continued to have a good relationship. She and her husband named their eldest son after Fox Talbot.

Edgcumbe had three children with his wife:

Works

  • Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe: Extracts from a journal kept during the Roman revolution . J. Ridgway, London, 1849.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Holden: Mount Edgcumbe. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on June 19, 2013 ; Retrieved March 9, 2013 .
  2. ↑ Cynthia Gaskell Brown: Mount Edgcumbe House and Country Park: Guidebook , Mount Edgcumbe House and Country Park, Torpoint 2003, p. 24
predecessor Office successor
Richard Edgcumbe Earl of Mount Edgcumbe
1839-1861 		William Edgcumbe
personal data
SURNAME Edgcumbe, Ernest, 3rd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Edgcumbe, Ernest Augustus, 3rd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe; Mount Edgcumbe, Ernest Edgcumbe, 3rd Earl of; Edgcumbe, Edgcumbe, Ernest, Viscount Valletort
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British nobleman and politician, member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1797
DATE OF DEATH September 3, 1861