# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Grenville, Richard Temple Plantagenet Campbell Nugent Brydges Chandos

​GRENVILLE, RICHARD PLANTAGENET CAMPBELL TEMPLE NUGENT BRYDGES CHANDOS, third Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1823–1889), statesman, only son of Richard Plantagenet Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, second Duke of Buckingham and Chandos [q. v.], was born on 10 Sept. 1823, and was known as Earl Temple from his birth till 1839, and then as Marquis of Chandos from that date to 1861. He was at Eton from 1835 until 20 Oct. 1841, when he matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, and was created D.C.L. on 7 June 1852. He was lieutenant in the Royal Bucks regiment of yeomanry 1843, captain 1845, lieutenant-colonel commandant 1862, and honorary colonel 1881. He sat as member of parliament for the borough of Buckingham in the conservative interest from 11 Feb. 1846 to 21 March 1857; but on his contesting the university of Oxford on 1 July 1859 with Mr. W. E. Gladstone, he received only 859 votes against 1050 given for his opponent. In Lord Derby's short administration he was a junior lord of the treasury from 28 Feb. to 28 Dec. 1852. From March 1852 to 1859 he was keeper of the privy seal to the Prince of Wales, who in October 1852 appointed him a special deputy warden of the stannaries. He was elected chairman of the London and North-western railway in October 1853, and in that position displayed business qualities of a high order; he resigned in 1861, and on 29 July in that year, on the death of his father, succeeded as the third Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. He was chairman of the executive committee of the royal commission for the Great Exhibition of 1862, honorary colonel of the 1st Middlesex artillery volunteers on 10 July 1865, and was gazetted a privy councillor on 6 July 1866. When Lord Derby returned to power he appointed Buckingham on 6 July 1866 lord-president of the council. He held this place until 8 March 1867, when he succeeded the Earl of Carnarvon as secretary for the colonies. He creditably fulfilled the duties of this post until the Derby-Disraeli administration went out on 8 Dec. 1868. In 1875 he was appointed governor of Madras, assumed the government on 23 Nov., and remained in India until 1880. During his term of office he energetically grappled with the terrible famine of 1876 and 1877. He instituted relief on a large scale early in the visitation, and by the end of July 1876 there were in receipt of relief in the Madras districts 839,000 persons. Relief works were also commenced, and by the end of April in the same year 716,000 persons were in daily employment. At the instance of Buckingham the lord mayor of London organised a relief fund on behalf of the sufferers, when 475,000l. were collected and forwarded to Madras. On 2 June 1870 he was named a knight grand commander of the Star of India. On 3 April 1868 he was gazetted lord-lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, and elected chairman of the Buckingham quarter session in 1881. Before the House of Lords on 21 July 1868 he established his right to the title of Baron Kinloss in the peerage of Scotland, which had been in abeyance (Remarks on Scottish Peerages, particularly with reference to the Barony of Bruce of Kinloss, by J. E. Brudenell Bruce, 1868; Times, 17, 18, and 22 July 1868). On the death of Lord Redesdale in May 1886, he was chosen chairman of committees in the House of Lords. In this capacity he was well and favourably known, though he had much of the brusqueness which had distinguished his predecessor in the office. He was a staunch conservative, but seldom spoke at length on political subjects. He made a laudable effort to pay off his father's debts, and succeeded in settling the majority of the claims. His death from diabetes took place at Chandos House, Cavendish Square, London, on 26 March 1889, and he was buried in Wotton Church on 2 April. He was twice married; first on 2 Oct. 1851 to Caroline, daughter of Robert Harvey of Langley Park, Buckinghamshire; she died on 28 Feb. 1874; secondly, 17 Feb. 1885, to Alice Anne, eldest daughter of Sir Graham Graham Montgomery, bart. By Buckingham's death the dukedoms of Buckingham and Chandos became extinct, while his nephew, William Stephen Gore Langton, formerly member of parliament for Mid Somerset, succeeded to the earldom of Temple. The eldest of Buckingham's three daughters, Lady Mary Morgan, a lady of the Crown of India, and wife of Captain Lewis F. H. C. Morgan, inherited the Scottish barony of Kinloss, and the viscounty of Cobham passed to Lord Lyttelton. Buckingham's will was proved in June 1889, ​the personalty being 79,942l. 5s. 5d., besides landed property.
[Doyle's Official Baronage, 1886, i. 265-6; C. Brown's Life of Lord Beaconsfield, 1882, ii. 50, with portrait; Illustrated London News, 1862 xl. 215, 225, 1867 l. 132, 142,and 6 April 1889, p. 443, with portrait; Graphic, 22 May 1875, p. 501, with portrait, and 6 April 1889, p. 360, with portrait; Times, 28 March 1889, p. 7, and 3 April, p. 11; Pictorial World, 4 and 11 April 1889, with portrait.]
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