John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute

Lord Mount Stuart in 1784, by Gainsborough Dupont.
Portrait of Lord Mount Stuart at age 19 by Jean-Étienne Liotard, 1763.

John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute PC, FRS (30 June 1744 – 16 November 1814), styled Lord Mount Stuart until 1792 and known as The Earl of Bute between 1792 and 1794, was a British nobleman.

Background and education

Stuart was the son of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute and the former Mary Wortley Montagu, a granddaughter of the 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull and great-granddaughter of the 1st Earl of Sandwich. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford University, and around 1757 he began to be tutored by the later famous Scottish philosopher Adam Ferguson.[1]

Political career

Lord Mount Stuart was Tory Member of Parliament for Bossiney from 1766 to 1776. On 2 November 1775 he announced in the House of Commons his intention to introduce a bill to establish a militia in Scotland, and during the next few months James Boswell assisted in seeking support for the bill in Scotland. In March 1776 the bill was debated, but ultimately failed to pass.[2]

In 1776 Mount Stuart was elevated to the Peerage of Great Britain in his own right as Baron Cardiff, of Cardiff Castle in the County of Glamorgan. Though this title was also used, he continued to be known by his courtesy title of Lord Mount Stuart.[3] (He ranked higher in the order of precedence as the heir to an earldom than he did as a substantive baron.) In 1779 he was sworn of the Privy Council and was sent as an envoy to the court of Turin. He was ambassador to Spain in 1783.[4] He held the sinecure of Auditor of the imprests from 1781 until the abolition of the office in 1785, upon which he was paid £7000 compensation.

He succeeded his father in the earldom in 1792. In 1794 he was created Viscount Mountjoy, in the Isle of Wight, Earl of Windsor and Marquess of Bute. (The Mountjoy and Windsor titles recognised the Barony of Mountjoy and Viscountcy of Windsor previously held by his father-in-law, the 2nd Viscount Windsor, which had both become extinct on Lord Windsor's death in 1758.) Lord Bute was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society on 12 December 1799.

Family

Lord Bute married the Honourable Charlotte Hickman-Windsor, daughter of Herbert Hickman-Windsor, 2nd Viscount Windsor, on 12 November 1766. They had several children:

His first wife died on 28 January 1800. He married Frances Coutts, daughter of Thomas Coutts, on 17 September 1800. They had two children:

His second wife outlived him, and died on 12 November 1832.

Footnotes

  1. "John Stuart, 1st Marquess of the County of Bute," thePeerage.com. John Robertson, The Scottish Enlightenment and the Militia Issue (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1985), pp. 83 and 96, n. 75.
  2. Robertson, pp. 130-32.
  3. C. Evans (ed.), The Letterbook of Richard Crawshay, 1788-1797 (South Wales Record Society 6, 1991), p. 181.
  4. McCahill, M.W., The House of Lords in the Age of George III (Chichester: Wiley, 2009), p. 17, n. 23.

References

External links

Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by
Edward Wortley-Montagu
John Richmond Webb
Member of Parliament for Bossiney
1766–1776
With: Edward Wortley-Montagu 1766–1768
Henry Luttrell 1768–1769, 1774–1776
Sir George Osborn, Bt 1769–1774
Succeeded by
Henry Luttrell
Charles Stuart
Honorary titles
Preceded by
The Earl of Plymouth
Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan
1772–1793
Succeeded by
Lord Mount Stuart
Vacant
Title last held by
Lord Mount Stuart
Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan
1794–1814
Succeeded by
The Marquess of Bute
New title
Office created
Lord Lieutenant of Buteshire
1794–1814
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by
William Lynch
British Minister to Sardinia
1779–1783
Succeeded by
Hon. John Hampden-Trevor
Political offices
Preceded by
William Aislabie
The Lord Sondes
Auditor of the Imprests
1781–1785
With: The Lord Sondes
Office abolished
Peerage of Scotland
Preceded by
John Stuart
Earl of Bute
1792–1814
Succeeded by
John Crichton-Stuart
Peerage of Great Britain
New creation Marquess of Bute
1796–1814
Succeeded by
John Crichton-Stuart
Preceded by
Mary Wortley-Montagu
Baron Mount Stuart
1794–1814
New creation Baron Cardiff
1776–1814
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