Mural monument to Charles Gordon-Lennox, 5th Duke of Richmond, Chichester CathedralGarter-encircled arms of Charles Gordon-Lennox, 5th Duke of Richmond, KG, PC
Charles Gordon-Lennox, 5th Duke of Richmond, KG,PC (né Lennox; 3 August 1791 – 21 October 1860), styled the Earl of March from 1806 until 1819, was a British peer, soldier and prominent Conservative politician. Upon the death of his uncle in 1836, he inherited the Gordon estates and per the terms of the bequest, adopted thus additional surname.
As Earl of March, he served on Wellington's staff in the Peninsular War,[2] during which time he volunteered to join the 52nd (Oxfordshire) Regiment of Foot's advance storming party on the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo.[3] He formally joined the 52nd Foot in 1813 and took command of a company of soldiers at the Battle of Orthez in 1814, where he was severely wounded;[1] the musket-ball in his chest was never removed.[3] During the Battle of Waterloo (1815) he was aide-de-camp to the Prince of Orange, and following the latter's wounding, served as aide-de-camp to Wellington.[4] He was chiefly responsible for the institution in 1847 of the Military General Service Medal for all survivors of the campaigns between 1793 and 1814, considered by many belated as hitherto there had only been a Waterloo Medal. He campaigned in Parliament and also enlisted the interest of Queen Victoria.[5] Richmond himself received the medal with eight clasps.[3]
Richmond sat as a Member of Parliament for Chichester between 1812 and 1819.[2] The latter year he succeeded his father in the dukedom and entered the House of Lords where he was a vehement opponent of Roman Catholic emancipation, and later was a leader of the opposition to Peel's free trade policy, as he was the president of the Central Agricultural Protection Society, which campaigned for the preservation of the Corn Laws. Although a vigorous Conservative and Ultra-Tory for most of his career, Richmond's anger with Wellington over Catholic Emancipation prompted him to lead the Ultras into joining Earl Grey's reforming Whig government in 1830 (Lang, 1999).[2]
In 1836, on inheriting the estates of his childless maternal uncle George Gordon, 5th Duke of Gordon, he was required by the terms of the bequest to assume the surname of Gordon before that of Lennox;[2] he duly took the surname Gordon-Lennox for himself and his issue, by royal licence dated 9 August 1836.[11]
Marriage and children
On 10 April 1817 he married Lady Caroline Paget (1797 – March 1874), a daughter of Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey by his wife Lady Caroline Villiers, by whom he had five sons and five daughters:
^Stanley C. Johnson,
A Guide to Naval, Military, Air-force and Civil Medals and Ribbons, 1921, pp 57–60
^L. Barlow & R.J. Smith, The Uniforms of the British Yeomanry Force 1794–1914, 1: The Sussex Yeomanry Cavalry, London: Robert Ogilby Trust/Tunbridge Wells: Midas Books, ca 1979, ISBN0-85936-183-7, p. 7.
