ROSEBERY, Rt Hon Earl of 1929-2024

[Richard R]

From the Telegraph & Times of 4 July 2024: ROSEBERY The Rt Hon Earl of, Neil Archibald Primrose, DL. Peacefully on 30th June 2024 aged 95 at home, Neil Rosebery, beloved husband of Deirdre, much loved father of Lucy, Jane, Emma, Caroline and Harry, and loving grandfather and great-grandfather to all his family. Service will be held at Dalmeny Church in due course…

He was s of the 6^th Earl of ROSEBERY 1882-1974 and his 2^nd w Hon Eva Isabel Marion BRUCE 1892-1987 d of 2^nd Baron ABERDARE 1851-1929 and Constance Mary 1855-1932 d of Hamilton BECKETT 1829-83 (gs of Sir John BECKETT 1^st Bt 1743-1826) and Hon Sophia Clarence COPLEY 1828-1911 d of 1^st Baron LYNDHURST 1772-1863 and his 1^st w (her 2^nd h, she was wid of Lt Charles Thomas) Sarah Garay BRUNSDEN 1795-1834. He m 1955 Alison Mary Deirdre b 1931 d of Ronald William REID 1910-94 and Elinor Mary d of Percy Watt STUART 1869-1948 of Spring Creek, NZ and Elinor Mary 1874-1917 d of John Clervaux CHAYTOR 1836-1920 (gs of Sir William CHAYTOR 1^st Bt 1771-1847) and Emma FEARON 1847-1913 of Nelson, NZ, and had a son and four daus. His son succeeds him:

HARRY RONALD NEIL Primrose [7^th Earl of ROSEBERY] has yet to establish his claim: b 20 Nov 1967 he m 1^st 1994 (div 2014) Caroline Julia d of Ronald DAGLISH and Mrs William WYATT-LOWE of Hemel Hempstead and had a son and four daus (incl triplets); m 2^nd 2022 Harriet d of Barrie CLAPHAM.

SON LIVING (by 1^st m)

CASPIAN ALBERT HARRY b 8 Sep 2005 [Lord Dalmeny]

DAUGHTERS LIVING (by 1^st m)

Lady Marina Charlotte Elizabeth b 2002

Lady Lavinia Eva Marion b 2003

Lady Delphi Helen Isobel b 2003

Lady Celeste Margaret Louise b 2003

OTHERS IN LINE (according to DPB online) descendants of 3rd Earl of Scots cr, not in remainder to UK earldom

2. James Ralph PRIMROSE b 1952 (resident Nevada City, USA) m 1983 with a son and a dau

3. Andrew Gerald PRIMROSE b 1988 (son of 2)

4. David Neil PRIMROSE b 1945 (resident BC, Canada) m 1966 with two sons and an adopted dau

5. David Francis Neil PRIMROSE b 1966 (resident Sutton Coldfield, W Midlands, son of 4) m 1989 with two daus

6. Douglas James Baird PRIMROSE b 1970 (resident BC, Canada, son of 4) m 1994 with a son and an adopted dau

7. Jacob William PRIMROSE b 2002 (son of 6)

[Richard R]

CORRECTION: the late earl was the 7th holder of the title and the new earl is the 8th earl.

[Shachar Raz]

thepeerage.com, sourced from Burke's, says James has another son, Nicholas

[marquess]

Doesn't the Scottish earldom go through the female line?

[S. S.]

The earldom and its two subsidiary titles were made with remainder to his heirs male, in default of which to his heirs female (Complete Peerage, xi, 133). 

S.S.

[dpth...@gmail.com]

grandson of the Prime Minister Earl of Rosebery and of his Rothschild wife.

[bx...@yahoo.com]

According to the unterstein.net/or/the peerage.html website, at the time of his death, the late Earl was the 8th oldest living hereditary peer.

Only Elgin & Kincardine (b. 1924), Walsingham (b. 1925), Knutsford (b.1926), Gisborough (b. 1927), Donoughmore (b. 1927)  and two born in 1928, Brain and Westmeath, were older.

Brooke

[BREMENMURRAY]

Surely he has the last living grandchild of a nineteenth century Prime Minister. Also is the  new earl the only peer to be the parent of triplets?

[marquess]

The barony of Savile has triplets as heirs apparent, issue of the Hon Henry Lumley Savile.

[dpth...@gmail.com]

I have no idea whether there were other instances of Peers having triplets, but one famous case is Augustus Berkeley, 4th Earl of Berkeley (18 Feb 1716-Berkeley 9 Jan 1755), and his wife, Elizabeth Drax (ca 1720-29 Jun 1792), who had triplets, Louisa, Elizabeth and Frances, all born 28 Jul 1748, d.soon after christening.

Collins Peerage, iii, 625 (see attached)

GM 1748 xviii 332 (see attached)


The Berkeley triplets became a sort of "meme" in those days, and were mentioned by Horace Walpole at the time, but also at leat twoce more than ten years later:


Walpole to Hon. Henry Seymour Conway, 29 August 1748, discussing Conway's possible future children: "always provided that she does not bring three at once, like my Lady Berkeley."

Walpole to Lord Strafford, 30 October 1759, relating a story about someone else: "...as to taking the precedent of my lady Berkeley, she hoped it would answer in nothing but in my Lady Stanhope having three children the first year."

Walpole to Conway, 14 July 1761, discussing future news he may write to Conway: "I will ... inform you of how many children my Lady B___ is with child..." [Successive editors of Walpole's correspondence have all assumed that this refers to Lady Berkeley, by 1761 married to Robert Nugent, and who indeed gave birth to a child later in 1761, which child was not acknowledged by Nugent.]

[dpth...@gmail.com]

I realize that the Collins Peerage excerpt I attached says the triplets were born 1749, but that 1748 is correct is shown by the Gentleman's Magazine excerpt and the Walpole reference.

[S. S.]

I believe we had a triplets thread earlier in the year where we discussed quite a few examples. I did not know the Berkeley example, so I will definitely be adding it under my re-write of that article now! 

S.S.

[dpth...@gmail.com]

That earlier thread was about Peers who were themselves one of triplets, at least originally, though there is a post in it about triplets born to Peerage families. The question of what peers HAD triplets doesn't seem to have been covered thoroughly.

https://groups.google.com/g/peerage-news/c/YH1qlPQQNHE/m/E9yMh-GrAwAJ

[S. S.]

I always imagined the difficulty is in tracking down the exact birth/baptismal records to get a good idea of those peers that had triplets. I am sure beyond the examples listed in the previous thread, there had to have been cases of this phenomenon in the past, though confirming the births themselves poses a problem.

S.S.

[dpth...@gmail.com]

Surely there may have been more, but I have done word searches for the word "triplet" in all volumes of Complete Peerage and some old volumes of Burke's and other Peerage works, as well as a recent Burke's edition, and came up with no other triplets of peers. There may have been some which were mentioned without using the word "triplet, which I could thus not find. For example, in the Savile case mentioned above, Burke's shows the three with the same birth date but does not use the word "triplet" so I have no way of finding such cases.

[S. S.]

It may be that one or more siblings in a triplet were deceased at birth or not long after (not at all improbable given the high obstetric and gynecological problems that come with a triple delivery, more than that of mere twins especially at that time) and they were not sufficiently recorded in comparison to their surviving siblings. For such cases, I think one has to consult baptismal registries etc or family records to get the full picture, which sadly can be rather limited even online at present.

S.S.

[dpth...@gmail.com]

"Surely he has the last living grandchild of a nineteenth century Prime Minister. "

But we do still have one living grandchild of a 19th Century US President... and not just 19th Century, but president in the 1840s.

On Thursday, July 4, 2024 at 11:24:16 AM UTC-5 BREMENMURRAY wrote:

[bx...@yahoo.com]

In taking a quick look through the recent thread on Triplets, I think the only other current peer with triplets is Lord Mottistone. 

 His triplet girls-- Hon. Freya, Hon. Tilly and Hon. Molly-- were born in 2011.

Brooke

[malcolm davies]

Just a reminder that the UK earldom is Earl of Midlothian,Viscount Mentmore & Lord Epsom created for the 5th Earl who was also created Lord Rosebery earlier in the peerage of the UK to eliminate the need for him to seek election as a representative peer.All of those titles descend in tail male.

[marquess]

Doesn't  in tail male descent also imply that the peerage would be extended by beyond the male heirs of the original grantee as in the case of the earl of Devon?

[marquess]

Futher to the question of succession to the above mentioned earldom, with the exception of the 2nd earl, has the succession always been from father to son? No female has ever succeed to this late Scottish peerage thus far.

[S. S.]

marquess, the Earldom of Rosebery has been created with remainder to the heirs male of the grantee in default of which to his heirs female. There is no mention of it extended beyond that of the first grantee. As for the Earldom of Midlothian, that is simply to the heirs male.

Earldom of Rosebery: 

1st Earl succeeded by his eldest son,

2nd Earl succeeded by his younger surviving son,

3rd Earl succeeded by his son by his 2nd wife,

4th Earl succeeded by his grandson,

5th Earl succeeded by elder son,

6th Earl succeeded by his younger surviving son by his 2nd wife,

7th Earl succeeded by his only son, the present 8th Earl.

Remember that the Earldom of Rosebery has been created with remainder first to heirs male, in default of that to heirs female, hence why no woman has succeeded to the peerage yet.

S.S.

[Richard R]

Thanks all for these updates. Interesting that BPB 2003 give a 'black dot' to all living female descendants of the earls. They should change that to the plus sign online!

[marquess]

Are there any other remainders in the Peerage similiar to the Roseberry one? If say the current male line of family failed, the Scottish earldom goes to the nearest male collateral. Say the latter individual has only one daughter who has a male heir. Would the earldom then descent in his male line but yet still have the same female remainder in force should his line fail? The daughters of the current earl would then  be in remainder as collaterals?

[BREMENMURRAY]

Thanks for the replies regarding triplets in the peerage

[colinp]

Obit in the Daily Telegraph 9 July 2024 -  The Earl of Rosebery and Midlothian, unconventional electrician who lit major exhibitions – obituary (telegraph.co.uk)

EXTRACTS:

The Earl of Rosebery and Midlothian, unconventional electrician who lit major exhibitions – obituary

He came to public notice at the ‘sale of the century’ of his house Mentmore, when mid-auction he leapt up and fixed the wiring

The 7th Earl of Rosebery and 4th Earl of Midlothian, who has died aged 95, was a scientist, electrical engineer and agriculturalist with a brilliant, if unconventional, mind.

The grandson of Queen Victoria’s last Liberal prime minister, the 5th Earl of Rosebery, and Hannah Rothschild, he came to public notice in 1977, three years after succeeding his father, at the famous sale of Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, the spectacular Rothschild house which his father had inherited.

At the start of the auction the public address system failed. Not pausing, the youthful Lord Rosebery leapt into the rostrum, upstaging the chairman of Sotheby’s, Peter Wilson, delved into the wiring and fixed the problem in a trice….

Neil Rosebery’s unusual aptitude for science was perhaps a manifestation of a Rothschild gene, for his cousins included the scientist Victor (Lord) Rothschild and the world expert on fleas, Miriam Rothschild. As a boy he had a tin hut in which he built transistors, and at the Rosebery seat of Dalmeny, a Regency gothic house designed by William Wilkins overlooking the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh, he undertook rewiring until he got stuck under the floorboards, much to the irritation of his mother.

Neil Archibald Primrose was born in Mayfair on 11 February 1929 to his father’s second wife, Eva Bruce, daughter of the 2nd Lord Aberdare and former wife of Algernon Strutt, the 3rd Lord Belper. His father, the 6th Earl of Rosebery, was a first-class cricketer, the owner of two Derby winners, and a Liberal politician who was briefly installed by Churchill as Secretary of State for Scotland. 

Ronald, Lord Dalmeny, Neil’s elder half-brother by his father’s first marriage to Dorothy Grosvenor, died aged 21 in 1931, and Neil became the heir, taking the alternative courtesy title of Lord Primrose. 

He was effectively an only child. His half-sister Lady Helen Primrose was already 16 when he was born, and there were three adult Strutt half-siblings by his mother’s first marriage, including Lavinia, later Duchess of Norfolk. The young Neil occupied himself with his electrical enthusiasms and Meccano, and to the delight of his mother shared her passion for bridge. 

He was 11 when the Second World War broke out, and thanks to his parent’s friend, J Pierpont Morgan Jnr, was sent to the United States for two years, attending Millbrook School at Stanford, New York……

His career as a lighting professional coincided with marriage and the arrival of a large family, which gave Neil the secure emotional base he had lacked. He had met Deirdre Reid, an art student at the Ruskin, at the Oxford Playhouse, where he created the lighting and she painted the sets. They courted watching Marx Brothers’ films at the Walton Street cinema and married in 1955.

Deirdre Rosebery provided Neil with a strong centring force over the remarkable 70-year span of their marriage. Both were very strong characters. They had five children, four daughters and a soN.

Married life was divided between a London house in Orme Square, and Dalmeny, where Neil became a progressive forester and farmer. The Scottish estates, the historic base of the family, were given to him by his father in 1955 and Neil and Deirdre converted the upper floor at Dalmeny into a self-contained family house…..

Lord Rosebery is survived by his wife and children. His son Harry Dalmeny, chairman of Sotheby’s UK, succeeds to the earldoms.

The 7th Earl of Rosebery and 4th Earl of Midlothian, born February 11 1929, died June 30 2024

[bx...@yahoo.com]

colinp, thanks for sharing the obituary.

Interesting to see that  he is referred to in this article as the "Earl of Rosebery and Earl of Midlothian."  

The "Earl of Rosebery" has always been called just that, even though he was obviously both.  In other cases of "double earls," like   "Strathmore and Kinghorne," "Elgin and Kincardine" or "Crawford and Balcarres", they have always been known by both titles.

Brooke

[Henry W]

From the Court Circular

17 July 2024
St. James's Palace
[...]
Her Royal Highness [The Princess Royal] was represented by Mrs. Charles Ritchie (Lady in Waiting to Her Royal Highness) at the Funeral of the Earl of Rosebery and Midlothian which was held at Dalmeny Kirk, Main Street, Dalmeny, Midlothian, this afternoon.

[Richard R]

Obit in the Times of 26 July 2024:

E X T R A C T

The Earl of Rosebery and Midlothian obituary: heir in stately home ‘sale of the century’

Electrical engineer who settled Labour Party death duties with auction of Mentmore Towers and its collection

Neil Primrose’s paternal grandfather, the 5th Earl of Rosebery, is reputed to have said that he had three aims in life: to win the Derby, to marry an heiress, and to become prime minister. He succeeded in all three. Primrose, the 7th Earl, had altogether more practical interests, including unusually, perhaps even incongruously for a peer of the realm, electrical engineering.

He did however enjoy, for a time at least, the fruits of his grandfather’s providential marriage into the Rothschild family, in particular Mentmore Towers, described by Pevsner as “the most conspicuous and significant aspect of Victorian architecture in Buckinghamshire”, and above all its contents, notably of fine art.

Much of the estate was sold by the 6th Earl in 1944, but the mansion, its grounds, formal gardens, several farms and the estate village remained to be inherited by Neil Primrose, his second son. He had succeeded as heir apparent with the courtesy title “Lord Primrose” in 1931 on the death at the age of 21 of his elder half-brother Ronald. Much of the National Portrait Gallery’s collection, with others, was stored for safekeeping at Mentmore during the war.

…Neil Archibald Primrose, grandson of Queen Victoria’s last Liberal prime minister, was born in London in 1929 to his father’s second wife, Eva Bruce, daughter of the 2nd Lord Aberdare and former wife of Algernon Strutt, the 3rd Lord Belper. She had divorced him in 1922 on grounds of “desertion and misconduct”, commonly referred to as “ordinary hotel evidence”. His father, the 6th Earl of Rosebery DSO MC, a Grenadier Guards officer who captained Surrey County Cricket Club, served as secretary of state for Scotland in the closing months of Churchill’s wartime coalition government. When Ronald, Neil Primrose’s half-brother by his father’s first marriage to Dorothy Grosvenor, daughter of the first duke of Westminster and renowned beauty, died, rather than take the usual heir apparent’s courtesy title “Lord Dalmeny”, to avoid confusion he took the alternative courtesy title of “Lord Primrose”.

[He m 1955] Alison Mary (Deirdre) Reid, the daughter of a distinguished surgeon and student at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford, whom he had met at the Oxford Playhouse... Countess Rosebery survives him, along with their four daughters and very latterly a son: Lady Lucy, Lady Jane, Lady Emma and Lady Caroline; and Harry, who reverted to the courtesy title “Lord Dalmeny”, and who succeeds to the earldoms of Rosebery and of Midlothian and several other titles created for his great-grandfather and former earls.

…The titles too had been historically of the Scottish peerage, and therefore not entitling the holder to sit by right in the House of Lords, only as a representative elected by his fellow Scots peers, until the creation of a barony in 1828 to allow the fourth earl to sit by right, and Midlothian in 1911. Rosebery sat in the Lords by right of the latter earldom until 1999, when reform introduced representative election of all hereditaries. He did not feel the deprivation keenly. According to Hansard, he made no “contributions”, oral or written, in his 25 years as a titular member…

The 7th Earl of Rosebery and 3rd Earl of Midlothian, electrical engineer, was born on February 11, 1929. He died on June 30, 2024, aged 95

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/the-earl-of-rosebery-and-midlothian-gwdvdt3xl

[colinp]

Sir Harry Ronald Neil Primrose has now been entered on the Official Roll of the Baronetage as the 10th Baronet Primrose of Carrington.  He is referred to as the 8th Earl of Rosebery so I assume he has also been entered on the Roll of the Peerage

[Richard R]

From the Telegraph of 30 Nov 2024

The Rt Hon Earl of, Neil Archibald Primrose, DL. Peacefully on 30th June 2024 aged 95 at home, Neil Rosebery, beloved husband of Deirdre, much loved father of Lucy, Jane, Emma, Caroline and Harry, and loving grandfather and great-grandfather to all his family. Service will be held at Dalmeny Church in due course.

[colinp]

Harry Ronald Neil PRIMROSE is now entered on the Roll of the Peerage as Earl of Rosebery in the peerage of Scotland; also as Earl of Midlothian in the Peerage of the United Kingdom