Henry Reynolds-Moreton, 2nd Earl of Ducie


Henry George Francis Reynolds-Moreton, 2nd Earl of Ducie, styled the Hon. Henry Reynolds-Moreton from 1808 to 1837 and the Lord Moreton from 1837 to 1840, was a British Whig politician, agriculturalist and cattle breeder.

Early life

Ducie was born on 8 May 1802, the son of Thomas Reynolds-Moreton, 1st Earl of Ducie, and his wife Lady Frances, daughter of Henry Herbert, 1st Earl of Carnarvon. He was educated at Eton. Lord Ducie married the Hon. Elizabeth, daughter of John Dutton, 2nd Baron Sherborne, on 29 June 1826. They had eleven sons and four daughters.

Career

Lord Moreton entered Parliament for Gloucestershire in 1831, a seat he held until the following year when the constituency was abolished, and then represented Gloucestershire East until 1835. After entering the House of Lords on the death of his father in 1840 he served in the Whig administration of Lord Russell as a Lord-in-waiting from 1846 to 1847, when he resigned. In Parliament he gained a reputation as an advocate of free trade. He supported the repeal of the Corn Laws and, as an agriculturalist, his views were influential.
Despite his political career Ducie is best remembered as a leading agriculturalist and as a breeder of shorthorns. From 1851 to 1852 he was President of the Royal Agricultural Society. The sale of his famous shorthorns shortly after his death in 1853 generated £9,000.
He was a prominent member of the Evangelican Alliance.

Later life

He died on 2 June 1853 at his home, Tortworth Court, Whitfield, Gloucestershire aged 51, and was succeeded in the earldom by his eldest son Henry. His wife, the Countess of Ducie, died in 1865. As his son Henry died in October 1921 without a living son, the earldom passed to another of Lord Ducie's sons Berkeley who had immigrated to Queensland, Australia.

Legacy

The "Ducie cultivator" usually ascribed to him is in fact believed to have been invented by the managers of his ironworks at Uley.

Arms