Henry Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge (second creation)


Henry Bayly-Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge, known as Henry Bayly until 1769 and as Lord Paget between 1769 and 1784, was a British peer.

Early life

Born Henry Bayly, Uxbridge was the eldest son of Sir Nicholas Bayly, 2nd Baronet, of Plas Newydd in Anglesey, by his wife Caroline Paget, daughter of Brigadier-General Thomas Paget and a great-granddaughter of William Paget, 5th Baron Paget. He succeeded as 10th Baron Paget in 1769 on the death of his mother's second cousin, Henry Paget, 2nd Earl of Uxbridge. By Royal Licence on 29 January 1770, he took the name of Paget in lieu of Bayly. In 1782 he succeeded his father as 3rd Baronet.

Career

Paget was commissioned colonel of the newly raised Staffordshire Militia on 22 April 1776 during the War of American Independence. He resigned in 1781 but was re-appointed in 1783, after the war had ended and the regiment was disembodied. He was still commanding the regiment when it was re-embodied for the French Revolutionary War, and remained so until his death.
Uxbridge became Lord Lieutenant of Anglesey in 1782. On 19 May 1784, he was created Earl of Uxbridge, in the County of Middlesex. He was also Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire between 1801 and 1812, Constable of Caernarfon Castle, Ranger of the Forest of Snowdon, Steward of Bardney, and Vice-Admiral of North Wales.

Marriage and issue

In 1767 Lord Uxbridge married Jane, daughter of the Very Reverend Arthur Champagné, Dean of Clonmacnoise, a descendant of a well-known Huguenot family which had settled in Ireland, and his wife Jane Forbes. They had twelve children:
Lord Uxbridge died in March 1812, aged 67, and was succeeded in the earldom by his eldest son Henry, who gained fame at the Battle of Waterloo and was created Marquess of Anglesey. The Countess of Uxbridge died in March 1817, aged seventy.
He owned Beaudesert, Cannock Chase in the 18th century, in which he hired James Wyatt to remodel the interior of the hall in 1771-72.
In 1809, Lord Uxbridge bought Surbiton Place, just to the south of Kingston upon Thames. When the Surbiton Park estate was built on its grounds in the 1850s, a street was named Uxbridge Road in honour of him and his heir Henry, who inherited it.