RICHMOND & GORDON, Susan Duchess of (Susan Monica nee GRENVILLE-GREY) 1932-2023

[Richard R]

From the Telegraph of 16 June 2023: RICHMOND, Susan Monica, Duchess of Richmond and Gordon (nee Grenville-Grey) died peacefully at home on Tuesday 13 June. Beloved wife of the 10^th Duke of Richmond and Gordon, who died September 2017; mother, grandmother and great grandmother. Funeral at Chichester Cathedral on Thursday June 29 at 2pm. All are welcome.

She was d of Col Cecil Everard Montague GRENVILLE-GREY CBE 1899-1973 and Louisa Monica 1903-2003 d of Lt-Col Ernest Fitzroy MORRISON-BELL 18710-1960 (s of Sir Charles William MORRISON-BELL 1^st Bt 1833-1914) and Maud Evelyn HENRY 1872-1960. She m 1951 10^th Duke of RICHMOND & GORDON 1929-2017, and had a son (present 11^th Duke b 1955) and four daus (incl two adopted).

[marquess]

Shouldn't it be 10th Duke of Richmond & 5th of Gordon, or Richmond, Lennox and Gordon ? I always thought that multiple titles of the same rank were supposed to be styled in order of senority?

[Ivan Prekajski]

The late Duke was 10th Duke of Richmond, 10th Duke of Lennox, 10th Duke of Aubigny, 5th Duke of Gordon.

[Peter FitzGerald]

They generally use only the Richmond and Gordon titles. See e.g. on the Goodwood website:

https://www.goodwood.com/estate/message-from-the-duke-of-richmond/

This may be because the Gordon title (like the double-barrelling of their surname - Gordon-Lennox rather than the previous Lennox) reflects a distinct part of the family history, namely their inheritance of the Gordon estates on the death of the 5th and last Duke of Gordon in 1836. (His eldest sister, Lady Charlotte Gordon, had married the 4th Duke of Richmond in 1789.) The Lennox title, on the other hand, whilst senior, was simply created for the 1st Duke shortly after the Richmond title (presumably because the previous (and recently extinct) Dukes of Richmond, distant male-line cousins of the Stuart kings through their shared descent from the 3rd Earl of Lennox, had also been Dukes of Lennox).

There is no rule that peers must use all of their titles. For example, the Earls Brooke and Earls of Warwick are known by the latter (more junior, but also more prestigious) title alone; the Lords Sheffield, Stanley of Alderley and Eddisbury generally use only the first or the second of those titles (some have been known as Lord Stanley of Alderley despite the Sheffield title being senior); and the Lords Trevethin and Oaksey generally use only the latter (again more junior) title.

[Richard R]

Obit in the Times of 24 June 2023

E X T R A C T

Susan, Duchess of Richmond obituary

Elegant chatelaine of Goodwood House who had the inspired idea of adding music to dressage

When a young girl named Susan stood in the moonlight on the battlements of Arundel Castle on the evening of her 18th birthday and accepted the proposal of a young man named Charles, what seemed like a scene from a romantic novel was actually the foundation of a life of trailblazing innovation.

A delicate, elegant, gentle-voiced woman, Susan would eventually become the chatelaine of Goodwood House in West Sussex, overseer of its modernisation and mistress of its organic home farm….

… Susan Monica Grenville-Grey was born in 1932, the younger child of Colonel Cecil Edward Montague Grenville-Grey and his wife Louise Monica Morrison-Bell. When her parents went to Egypt during the Second World War, as her father was fighting with the Royal Greenjackets in north Africa, she was left with her maternal grandparents in Gloucestershire, and with an adored governess known as Noko, whose love of wildlife and the natural world was passed on to Susan.

Aged 15, she met Charles Gordon-Lennox, her elder brother Wilfrid’s best friend at Eton, the Earl of March and Kinrara, and the future Duke of Richmond and Gordon. They corresponded when she went to the domestic science college Harcombe House. Having plighted their troth during Glorious Goodwood week in 1950 they married a year later at Holy Trinity, Brompton Road. The following year she gave birth to their eldest daughter Ellinor, who became a ballet dancer…

… The couple’s son and heir, the present Duke of Richmond, said his liberal, non-judgmental parents were never evangelical. Yet in 1957, after Susan had been stricken with post-natal depression following his birth in 1955, they moved to Rugby, living at nearby Clifton Manor, so that they could study at the William Temple College, an institution committed to spreading Christianity in the workplace. Charles became director of industrial studies there…

In 1960, the Earl and Countess of March decided to adopt two half-African children. It seemed a daring move in those times, and Susan faced a “furore” in the family and the press. She was pursued by photographers and ostracised by her own parents, who eventually came round to her decision but were not totally forgiven.

The present duke recalled his sisters’ arrivals: the first when he was five, being driven in his father’s red and white Zephyr on Easter Monday, sitting in the back with the new baby Maria’s Moses basket.

As the family later learnt, shortly after the public fuss over the adoptions, the Earl and Countess were invited to Windsor Castle for Ascot. They knew that the late Queen was on their side…

Susan, Duchess of Richmond and Gordon, chatelaine of Goodwood House, was born on July 26, 1932. She died on June 13, 2023, aged 90

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/susan-duchess-of-richmond-obituary-v9kl8spdv