Monarch George IV; William IV Nationality British | Name George 5th Died April 23, 1839 | |
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Born 13 November 1757
Watford, Hertfordshire ( 1757-11-13 ) Known for Commissioned the redesign of Cassiobury House Education Corpus Christi College, Cambridge | ||
George Capel-Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex FSA (13 November 1757 – 23 April 1839) was an English aristocrat and politician, and styled Viscount Malden until 1799. His surname was Capell until 1781.
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Origins
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George Capell was the son and heir of William Anne Capell, 4th Earl of Essex (1732–1799), from his first marriage to Frances Williams. He was also the elder half-brother of Thomas Bladen Capel, Captain (later Admiral) in the Royal Navy and one of Horatio Nelson's Band of Brothers.
Career
George Capell was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, receiving his MA in 1777. In 1781 he took the additional name of Coningsby on succeeding to the estates of his grandmother, Lady Francis Hanbury-Williams, née Coningsby.
He was one of the two members of parliament for Westminster from 1779 to 1780, a member for Lostwithiel from 1781 to 1784, for Okehampton from 1785 to 1790, and for Radnor from 1794 to 1799.
On 4 March 1799 Capel-Coningsby succeeded his father as 5th Earl of Essex. He served as Recorder and High Steward of Leominster in 1802, and as Lord Lieutenant of Herefordshire from 1802 to 1817. He became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1801, and received an honorary D.C.L. from Oxford University in 1810.
Upon his succession to the title of Earl of Essex, he set about a major reconstruction of the family seat, Cassiobury House in Watford, Hertfordshire, engaging the services of the architect James Wyatt and landscape designer Humphrey Repton to develop the house and grounds.
Essex was noted as a major patron of the arts and was responsible for building up a large fine art collection at Cassiobury. An obituary of Essex in 1839 records that "his Lordship has richly embellished his house at Cassiobury, as well as his town mansion in Belgrave Square, with numerous choice works of our native painters", and that he had entertained a number of noted British artists of the day at Cassiobury and commissioned works from them, including J. M. W. Turner, Augustus Pugin, John Callcott Horsley, David Wilkie and Edwin Henry Landseer.
Marriages
George Capel-Coningsby married twice:
Death and burial
George Capel-Coningsby died on 23 April 1839 at Cassiobury, aged 81, and was buried at Watford, leaving behind his operatic widow, Kitty Stephens, who was now the Countess Dowager. Because he had no son of his own, his Earldom and estates passed to a nephew, Arthur Algernon Capell, the eldest son of his half-brother John Thomas Capell.