Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough

Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough

Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough (* 24. January 1758 , † 3 February 1844 ) was an Irish nobleman and Whig - politicians .

Life

Ponsonby was the only son of three children of the politician William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough (1704–1793), and his wife Lady Caroline Cavendish (1719–1760), a daughter of William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire , and the Catherine Hoskins. In February 1758 he was at St. Marylebone Church in London district of Marylebone baptized. As his father's apparent marriage , he carried the courtesy title Viscount Duncannon from July 4, 1758 to 1793 .

In October 1774 he began at Christ Church College of Oxford University to study philosophy and politics , which he in 1777 as a Master of Arts graduated. He then went on a Grand Tour and toured France , Italy , Constantinople and the Holy Land . After his two-year absence Ponsonby doctorate at Oxford University with a doctorate in Civil Law ( Doctorate of Civil Law ). Between 1780 and 1793 he was an elected MP in the British House of Commons for the Borough of Knaresborough in Yorkshire . In 1782 he became First Lord of the Admiralty . In 1793 he inherited his father as 3rd Earl of Bessborough along with subordinate titles and thus became a member of the British and, until its dissolution by the Act of Union 1800 , also of the Irish House of Lords .

John Hoppner : Harriet, Viscountess Duncannon, with their two sons Frederick and John, oil on canvas, 1787

On November 27, 1780, he married Lady Henrietta Frances Spencer (1761-1821), the second daughter of John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer , and Margaret Georgiana Poyntz, in St. James Church in London . On his father's side, his wife was the great-great-granddaughter of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough , who won the Battle of Höchstädt in the War of the Spanish Succession . From a long-standing love affair with the politician Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville , his wife had - with his approval - two illegitimate children, Harriett Stewart and George Stewart. The marriage, which according to all reports was turbulent but also harmonious, had four children:

• John William Ponsonby (1781–1847), later 4th Earl of Bessborough ⚭ 1805 Lady Maria Fane (1787–1834);
• Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby (1783–1837), Major-General in the British Army ⚭ 1825 Lady Emily Charlotte Bathurst († 1877);
• Caroline Ponsonby (1785-1828) ⚭ 1805 William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1779-1848);
• William Francis Spencer Ponsonby (1787–1855), 1st Baron de Mauley ⚭ ​​1814 Lady Barbara Ashley-Cooper († 1844).

In the years that followed, the most important political figures gathered for talks in his London townhouse, including Charles James Fox , Richard Brinsley Sheridan , Lord Byron and Charles Gray, 2nd Earl Gray . The Ponsonby couple were also very familiar with the then Prince of Wales , later King George IV and William Pitt the Younger . Together with William Pitt they campaigned for Catholic emancipation in Ireland , which the king did not approve of - Pitt resigned as Prime Minister in 1802.

literature

• Janet Gleeson: Privilege and Scandal. The Remarkable Life of Harriet Spencer, Sister of Georgiana. Crown Publishers, New York 2007, ISBN 0-3073-8197-8 .
• Amanda Foreman: The Duchess of Devonshire. The life of a passionate woman. Piper Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 9783492236874 .
• George Edward Cokayne et al. (Ed.): The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant . Volume 2, Alan Sutton Publishing, Gloucester 2000, p. 338.
• Peter W. Hammond (Ed.): The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times. Volume 14, Sutton Publishing, Stroud 1998, p. 115.

Web links

• Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough, on thepeerage.com , accessed July 26, 2015.
• Mr Frederick Ponsonby at Hansard (English)

predecessor	Office	successor
William Ponsonby	Earl of Bessborough 1793-1844	John Ponsonby