William Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans


William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans was an English aristocrat and cricket player.

Early life

William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk was born on 24 March 1801. He was the son of William Beauclerk, 8th Duke of St Albans, and his second wife, the former Maria Janetta Nelthorpe.
His paternal grandparents were Lady Catharine Ponsonby and Aubrey Beauclerk, 5th Duke of St Albans, a Whig Member of Parliament for Thetford from 1761 to 1768 and for Aldborough from 1768 to 1774. His mother was the only daughter and heiress of John Nelthorpe of Little Grimsby Hall and Mary Cracroft.

Cricket

He played a first-class cricket match for Hampshire in 1817. He was a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club.

Personal life

On 16 June 1827, he married Harriet Coutts, who was 23 years his elder, in London. Harriet, the widow of banker Thomas Coutts and daughter of Lt. Matthew Mellon, was an actress who eventually starred at Drury Lane. She died on 6 August 1837 and left her fortune to her step-granddaughter, who changed her surname to Angela Burdett-Coutts.
On 29 May 1839, he married, secondly, to Elizabeth Catherine Gubbins in Harby, Leicestershire. Elizabeth was the youngest daughter of Maj.-Gen. Joseph Gubbins of Kilfrush, by his first wife Charlotte Bathoe. They had three children:
He died on 27 May 1849. After his death, his widow remarried, as his second wife, Lucius Cary, 10th Viscount of Falkland (formerly the Governor of Nova Scotia and Bombay, on 10 November 1859. They were married until his death in 1884. The Viscountess Falkland died on 2 December 1893 at St Leonards-on-Sea.

Descendants

Through his son, he was a grandfather of Osborne Beauclerk, 12th Duke of St Albans, Lady Moyra Beauclerk, Lady Katherine Beauclerk, Lady Alexandra Beauclerk, and Lord William Beauclerk, who both died unmarried.