Family and Education

b. 29 May 1754, 2nd s. of William, Visct. Petersham, and bro. of Charles, Visct. Petersham.  educ. Eton 1767-70.  m.Elizabeth Falconer or Faulkner 3s. 1da.

Offices Held

Cornet 15 Lt. Drag. 1772; lt. 1 Ft. Gds. and capt. 1776; maj. 86 Ft. 1779; capt. 1 Ft. Gds. and lt.-col. 1783; col. army 1794; ret. 1794.

Biography

Stanhope commanded the troops in Tobago in 1781, and signed the capitulation to the French on 2 June. His conduct was criticized by the governor, who threatened a court martial, but the charge was dropped.

He had been at Eton with Charles Manners, Marquess of Granby, served in the regiment raised by Granby (86th Foot), and was returned by Rutland, who had succeeded his grandfather, at Bramber. He voted against North’s Administration on 20 and 27 Feb. and 15 Mar. 1782. In Shelburne’s list of October-November 1782 Stanhope was included among the 40 Members expected to go with Fox. And on 15 Feb. 1783 Stanhope wrote to Rutland:1

Attached to you by friendship, it was my wish and expectation to have adhered to our political principles which I thought coincided with my own ... We were both attached to the same men and the same measures until the unfortunate separation of those men which took place upon Lord Rockingham’s death. You then sent for me and desired me to follow the direction of my own judgment, assuring me that you left me to be guided by my own conviction. Since then, you have never been confidential with me upon political or any other subjects. If you had expressed your wish that I should support Government, I should have had no alternative but to obey or resign my seat. Had you left me to myself I should have doubted before following my own judgment. But when, unsolicited by me, you proposed in the most unreserved and handsome manner that I should follow Mr. Fox if my principles inclined me to oppose Government, I did not apprehend that I should offend you by so acting.

Rutland was about to join Shelburne’s Cabinet, yet Stanhope voted against Shelburne’s peace preliminaries on 18 Feb. 1783, and on 27 Nov. voted for Fox’s East India bill. Rutland dropped him in 1784.

He died 20 Aug. 1828.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: John Brooke

Notes

• 1. HMC Rutland, iii. 68.