page_title: Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster
section_title: Political and public life
hierarchical_section_title: Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster / Political and public life
caption_attribution_description: Caricature of Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, Marquis of Westminster (1825-1899) (later 1st Duke of Westminster. Caption read "The Richest man in England".
context_page_description: Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, KG, PC, JP, styled Viscount Belgrave between 1831 and 1845 and Earl Grosvenor between 1845 and 1869 and known as The Marquess of Westminster between 1869 and 1874, was an English landowner, politician and racehorse owner.
  He inherited the estate of Eaton Hall in Cheshire and land in Mayfair and Belgravia, London, and spent much of his fortune in developing these properties. Although he was a member of parliament from the age of 22, and then a member of the House of Lords, his main interests were not in politics, but rather in his estates, in horse racing, and in country pursuits. He developed the stud at Eaton Hall and achieved success in racing his horses, winning the Derby on four occasions. Grosvenor also took an interest in a range of charities. At his death he was considered to be the richest man in Britain.
context_section_description: Grosvenor was elected as Whig MP for Chester in 1847 and continued to represent that constituency until, on the death of his father in 1869, he succeeded as 3rd Marquess of Westminster and entered the House of Lords.  His maiden speech in the Commons was made in 1851 in a debate on disorders in Ceylon, shortly following his tour of the country.  Otherwise he took little interest in the affairs of the House of Commons until 1866 when he expressed his opposition to Gladstone's Reform Bill.  This played a part in Gladstone's resignation, the election of the Conservative Derby government and Disraeli's Second Reform Act.  The relationship between Grosvenor and Gladstone later improved and in Gladstone's resignation honours in 1874, Grosvenor was created the 1st Duke of Westminster.  When Gladstone became Prime Minister again in 1880, he appointed Grosvenor as Master of the Horse, a position appropriate to his interests in horse racing but "not an actively political office". In the 1880s Grosvenor disagreed with Gladstone again, this time about Home Rule for Ireland.  During this dispute, Grosvenor sold his portrait of Gladstone that had been painted by Millais.  Ten years later they were again reconciled when they both opposed atrocities by the Turks against the Armenians. When Gladstone died in 1898, Grosvenor presided over a Gladstone National Memorial committee that commissioned statues of him, and rebuilt Gladstone's St Deiniol's Library at Hawarden in north Wales.
  In 1860 Grosvenor formed the Queen's Westminster Rifle Volunteers and became its Lieutenant Colonel and Honorary Colonel in 1881.  He led the Cheshire Yeomanry as Colonel Commandant from 1869. He also supported charities; at one time or another, he was the president of five London hospitals, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, the Gardeners' Royal Beneficent Association, the Hampstead Heath Protection Society, the Early Closing Association, the United Committee for the Demoralization of Native Races by the Liquor Traffic, and the Royal Agricultural Society.  He was a member of the Council for the Promotion of Cremation; at that time cremation was unpopular with the Church. Grosvenor was chairman of the Queen's Jubilee Nursing Fund, an organisation that provided district nurses for the sick poor, through which he became associated with Florence Nightingale. In 1883 he was appointed as Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire, and when the London County Council was created in 1888, he became the first Lord Lieutenant of the County of London.
caption: Caricature of Grosvenor by Carlo Pellegrini in Vanity Fair, 1870
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