Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland

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Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland bigraphy, stories - British duchess

Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland : biography

21 May 1806 – 27 October 1868

Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland (21 May 1806 – 27 October 1868) (née Lady Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana Howard), was Mistress of the Robes under several Whig administrations: 1837–1841, 1846–1852, 1853–1858, and 1859–1861; and was a great friend of Queen Victoria. She was an important figure in London’s high society, and used her social position to undertake various philanthropic undertakings including the protest of the English ladies against American slavery.

Ancestry

Biography

Harriet was the third daughter of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle and his wife Lady Georgiana Cavendish, cites . who was a daughter of the famous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

On 28 May 1823 she was married to her cousin George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Earl Gower(1786-1861), who had been elected M.P. for St. Mawes, Cornwall, in 1808, and succeeded his father as second Duke of Sutherland in 1833. Earl Gower had previously been debarred from matrimony by a romantic attachment for Louise, the unfortunate queen of Prussia; but the union with Lady Harriet Howard proved one of affection.

By the Duchess’s influence Stafford House, St. James’s Palace, became an important centre of society, cites Lord Ronald Gower, Reminiscences, vol. i. chap. i. and the starting-point of various philanthropic undertakings. There the protest of the English ladies against American slavery was framed in 1853.

The Duchess’s stance on slavery was heavily criticised by Karl Marx when her mother-in-law, the previous Duchess was then (1853) associated for the Highland Clearance of local Gaels in Sutherlandshire three decades prior, so that she could reuse 794,000 acres of land for commercial sheep farming. The facts were also carried over in Carlo Cafiero’s "The Compendium of The Capital" (1878).

On the accession of Queen Victoria the duchess was appointed Mistress of the Robes, and held that post when the Whigs were in office until her husband’s death (August 1837 to September 1841, July 1846 to March 1852, January 1853 to February 1856, June 1859 to April 1861). From the Queen’s refusal to part with the Duchess and her other ladies arose the bedchamber crisis of 1839, with the result that the Whigs returned to office. Victoria gave a sympathetic description of the Duchess’s character, cites Martin, Prince Consort, ii. 246 and after the death of Prince Albert, the prince consort, spent the first weeks of her widowhood with the Duchess as her solitary companion.

In 1861 the 4th Rogart Company of the 1st Sutherland Volunteer Rifle Corps formed up and bore the title, Duchess Harriet’s Company Rogart upon the pouch-belt plate.

The Duchess’s last public appearance was at the Prince of Wales’s marriage in 1863. In that year she was seized with an illness from which she never recovered. However, she was able to entertain Garibaldi, for whom she had great admiration, at Chiswick House and Trentham, Staffordshire, during his visit to England in April 1864. She died 27 October 1868, at her London residence, Stafford House, aged 62. She was subsequently interred in the Dukes of Sutherland’s mausoleum in Trentham., . Gladstone was one of the pall-bearers at her funeral.

Notes

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Family

On 18 May 1823 Harriet married George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Earl Gower, eldest son of the 2nd Marquess of Stafford, and a man twenty years her senior. Her father-in-law was created Duke of Sutherland in 1833, and was succeeded by his son later that year, whereupon Harriet became the Duchess of Sutherland.

They had eleven children:

  • Lady Elizabeth Georgiana (30 May 1824–25 May 1878), married George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll and had issue.
  • Lady Evelyn (8 August 1825 – 1869), cites . married Charles Stuart, 12th Lord Blantyre
  • Lady Caroline Leveson-Gower (15 April 1827 – 1887), married Charles FitzGerald, 4th Duke of Leinster and had issue.
  • Lord George Granville William (19 December 1828–22 September 1892), succeeded as 3rd Duke.
  • Lady Blanche Julia Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (26 June 1830-24 February 1832), .
  • Lord Frederick George (11 November 1832–6 October 1854)
  • Lady Constance Gertrude (16 June 1834 – 1880), married Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster and had issue.
  • Lady Victoria Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (16 May 1838-19 June 1839)
  • Lord Albert (21 Nov 1843–1874), married Grace Abdy, daughter of Sir Thomas Neville Abdy, 1st Baronet and had issue, including Frederick Neville Sutherland Leveson-Gower.
  • Lord Ronald Charles Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (2 August 1845–9 March 1916), died unmarried.
  • Lady Alexandrina Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (03 Feb 1848-21 June 1849)

In 1871, while her son-in-law, the Duke of Argyll, was serving in the Cabinet, his son (Harriet’s grandson), Lord Lorne, married one of Victoria’s daughters, Princess Louise. Harriet’s eldest son became 3rd Duke of Sutherland in 1861.

Character assessment

The Duchess’s letters, of which a selection was published by her son Lord Ronald Gower in Stafford House Letters, pts.iv-vi., prove her to have been possessed of an affectionate disposition, with some sense of humour. She had also an interest in architecture and gardening.