Name William 7th | ||
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Died 1943, Wentworth, United Kingdom Children Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 8th Earl Fitzwilliam People also search for Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 8th Earl Fitzwilliam, Lady Juliet Tadgell, Dorothea Plunket | ||
Great grandchildren Lord Nicholas Hervey Grandchildren Lady Juliet Tadgell | ||
William ("Billy") Charles de Meuron Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 7th Earl Fitzwilliam (25 July 1872 – 15 February 1943), styled Viscount Milton 1877–1902, was a British Army officer, nobleman, politician, and aristocrat.
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Biography
He was born in Pointe de Meuron, Ontario, Canada, and died at the family's seat, Wentworth Woodhouse. He sat in the House of Commons for Wakefield from 1895 until 1902, when he inherited the title Earl Fitzwilliam on the death of his grandfather William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 6th Earl Fitzwilliam. His father William Wentworth-FitzWilliam, Viscount Milton had pre-deceased him.
He served 1893–94 as Aide-de-camp to Lord Lansdowne, Viceroy of India. He was promoted to captain of the 4th (Militia) Battalion of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry on 11 April 1896. Following the outbreak of the Second Boer War in late 1899, he volunteered for service with the Imperial Yeomanry where he was commissioned lieutenant on 3 February 1900, serving with the 40th (Oxfordshire) Company in the 10th Battalion. He left London the same day in the SS Montfort, and arrived in South Africa the following month. Later that year he received a staff appointment, as captain on the headquarters staff in South Africa.
In May 1902, Lord Fitzwilliam was employed on the staff of the Duke of Connaught, who was in charge of military events during the Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. His main duties were in organizing the auxiliary forces during the celebrations.
He was High Sheriff of Rutland for 1898–99.
Family
On 24 June 1896, at St Paul's Cathedral, he married Lady Maud Frederica Elizabeth Dundas (b. 9 July 1877 Upleatham d. 15 March 1967), the daughter of Lawrence Dundas, 1st Marquess of Zetland and Lady Lillian Selina Elizabeth Lumley . They had five children;
On his succession to the Earldom, he became one of the richest men in Britain, inheriting an estate of significant land, industrial and mineral-right holdings worth £3.3 billion in 2007 terms. His sister Lady Mabel Fitzwilliam criticised his lifestyle: "he had so much and everyone else had so little".
Controversy
The unusual circumstances of his birth in a remote part of Canada's frontier lands were later to cause major controversy within the family. The accusation was that he was a changeling: an unrelated baby inserted into the family line, to purge the bloodline of the epilepsy from which his ostensible forebears had suffered, and to provide that arm of the family with a male heir to inherit the Earldom.