Name Edward Maur, | ||
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Edward Adolphus St Maur, 11th Duke of Somerset KG, FRS (24 February 1775 – 15 August 1855), styled Lord Seymour until 1793, of Maiden Bradley in Wiltshire and Stover House, Teigngrace, Devon, was a British landowner and amateur mathematician.
Biography
Seymour was born at Monkton Farleigh in Wiltshire, the son and heir of Webb Seymour, 10th Duke of Somerset (1718-1793) by his wife Mary Bonnell, daughter of John Bonnell, of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire. He was baptised on 4 April 1775 at Monkton Farleigh, with the name of Edward Adolphus Seymour, but later changed it to Edward Adolphus St. Maur, in the belief it was the original ancient form of the name.
In 1793 he succeeded his father in the dukedom. In 1795, in the company of Reverend John Henry Michell, he undertook a tour through England, Wales and Scotland, which he recorded in a journal, published in 1845. The tour took him as far as the Isles of Staffa and Iona in the Hebrides. He was a patron of the Free Church of England. He was a gifted mathematician and served as president of the Linnean Society of London from 1834 to 1837 and as president of the Royal Institution from 1826 to 1842. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1837 he was made a Knight of the Garter by Queen Victoria.
In 1808 he purchased a London townhouse on Park Lane which he named Somerset House, and where he spent much of his time. In addition, in 1829 he purchased from George Templer (1781-1843) the Devonshire estate of Stover in the parish of Teigngrace, near Newton Abbot, and made Stover House his principal residence, where he displayed the valuable "Hamilton" art collection brought as her marriage portion by his wife Lady Charlotte Hamilton, a daughter of the 9th Duke of Hamilton. This included paintings by Rubens, Lawrence and Reynolds. The principal seat of the Seymour family had been Maiden Bradley in Wiltshire, but for one more generation it remained Stover. The Stover purchase included the Stover Canal and the Haytor quarries and Haytor Granite Tramway. He added a large porte cochere with Doric columns to Stover House and built a matching entrance lodge.
Somerset married twice, firstly on 24 June 1800 to Lady Charlotte Douglas-Hamilton (6 April 1772 – Somerset House, Park Lane, London, 10 June 1827), daughter of Archibald Hamilton, 9th Duke of Hamilton, by whom he had seven children:
Following his first wife's death in 1827 he remarried on 28 July 1836 at Marylebone, Portland Place, London, to Margaret Shaw-Stewart, daughter of Sir Michael Shaw-Stewart, 5th Baronet of Blackhall, Renfrewshire by his wife Catherine Maxwell, daughter of Sir William Maxwell, 3rd Baronet. The marriage was childless.
Somerset died at Somerset House in London, in August 1855, aged 80, and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London. Margaret, his second wife, died at Somerset House on 18 July 1880, and was buried with her husband.