William Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans

William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans, styled the Hon. William Beauclerk before 1815 then Earl of Burford until 1825, was a 19th-century English cricketer and member of the House of Lords.

Background and education

Born in Hampshire, the eldest son of Commander William Beauclerk, 8th Duke of St Albans, and his second wife, Maria Janetta née Nelthorpe, he was educated at Westminster School and Christ's College, Cambridge.
His mother, Maria Duchess of St Albans, was the only daughter and heiress of John Nelthorpe of Little Grimsby Hall, High Sheriff of Lincolnshire and Mary Cracroft, second daughter, by his first wife, of Robert Cracroft of Hackthorn Hall.
His paternal grandparents were Lady Catharine Ponsonby and Aubrey Beauclerk, 5th Duke of St Albans, a Whig Member of Parliament for Thetford from 1761 to 1768 and for Aldborough from 1768 to 1774.

Life

Cricket

Playing cricket for Hampshire in 1817, Lord Burford then played minor cricket for the Gentlemen of Middlesex and Marylebone Cricket Club.
His uncle, the Revd Lord Frederick Beauclerk, served as President of MCC for 1826/27.

Titles and estates

Succeeding in 1825 to the dukedom as Hereditary Grand Falconer of England and to the other family titles, the 9th Duke married Harriet Coutts in 1827 with a substantial dowry.
His Grace carried the Sceptre with the Cross at the coronation of William IV in 1830.
The Duke and Duchess of St Albans divided their time between Holly Lodge, Highgate or Saint Albans House on Regency Square, Brighton as well as their London townhouse and his ancestral seats in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.
When the Duchess died on 6 August 1837, she left her husband a £10,000 annuity and interests in her London properties, but these were for life only, and did not pass to his heirs. Most of the Coutts fortune went to her first husband’s grand-daughter, making Angela Burdett-Coutts one of the great heiresses of the Victorian age.

Family

On 16 June 1827 at the Mayfair Chapel, the Duke married Mrs Harriet Coutts née Mellon, who was 23 years his senior. The daughter of Lieutenant Matthew Mellon, she was an actress of Drury Lane-fame,
who had married firstly, the banker Thomas Coutts.
St Albans married secondly on 29 May 1839 at Harby, Leicestershire, Elizabeth Catherine Gubbins, youngest daughter of Major-General Joseph Gubbins of Kilfrush, County Limerick by his first wife Charlotte Bathoe. The Duke and Duchess had three children:

William Amelius Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, 10th Duke of St Albans, who married Sybil Mary Grey, eldest daughter of Lieutenant-General the Hon. Sir Charles Grey and granddaughter of Charles, 2nd Earl Grey, ; after her death in 1871, he married Grace Bernal-Osborne, younger daughter and coheiress of Secretary of the Admiralty Ralph Bernal Osborne and granddaughter of Ralph Bernal
Lady Diana de Vere Beauclerk, who married Sir John Walter Huddleston Appeared in W. P. Frith's famous painting of the marriage of the Prince of Wales in 1863 and also in his 1881 work A Private View at the Royal Academy.
Lady Charlotte Beauclerk.

His Grace died on 27 May 1849 at the Holly Lodge, Highgate, Middlesex. There is a monument in his memory at Highgate Cemetery with an inscription which reads: To the memory of William Aubrey de Vere, 9th Duke of St Albans, for many years proprietor of Holly Lodge, Highgate; Born March 24th 1801, Died May 26th 1849.
After his death, the Dowager Duchess married secondly on 10 November 1859, as his second wife, Lucius Cary, 10th Viscount of Falkland, . Lord and Lady Falkland were married until his death in 1884; the Viscountess Falkland died on 2 December 1893 at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex.

Descendants

Through his only son, the 9th Duke was grandfather of Osborne Beauclerk, 12th Duke of St Albans, Lady Moyra Beauclerk, Lady Katherine Beauclerk, Lady Alexandra Beauclerk and Lord William Beauclerk, who both died unmarried.