Montagu family, Dukes of Manchester

Henry Montagu (c.1563-1642), third son of Sir Edward Montagu of Boughton (Northamptonshire) (see Montagu-Douglas-Scott, Dukes of Buccleuch and Queensberry), acquired Kimbolton (Huntingdonshire) in 1615, and was created Earl of Manchester in 1626. The 2nd Earl (1602-71) married in 1626, as his second wife, Anne Rich (d. 1642), eldest daughter of the second Earl of Warwick. On the death of the 4th Earl of Warwick in 1673 the Montagu family succeeded to the Leighs estate in Essex (sold to Guy's Hospital c.1750). The 4th Earl of Manchester (c.1662-1722) was created Duke of Manchester in 1719. In 1863, following the death of his grandmother Lady Olivia Bernard Sparrow (see below), the 7th Duke (1823-90) inherited estates in County Armagh (Tanderagee, etc), Huntingdonshire (Brampton) and Cambridgeshire. Kimbolton Castle was given up after the Second World War and is now a school.

Sir John Bernard, 2nd Bt, purchased Brampton Park in 1653. Sir John Bernard (c.1695-1766) married in 1737 Mary, daughter and heir of Sir Francis St John, Bt (d. 1756), of Thorpe (Northamptonshire), through whom estates in Northamptonshire (Thorpe), Essex (Kelvedon, etc), Cambridgeshire (Doddington) and County Armagh (Tanderagee, etc) were inherited. (Property in Suffolk (Stoke-by-Clare) and Staffordshire appears to have been sold about 1756.) On the death of Sir Robert Bernard, 5th Bt, in 1789 the Thorpe estate was sold, but the estates in Huntingdonshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Ireland passed to Robert Bernard Sparrow. He married Lady Olivia Acheson, daughter of the 1st Earl of Gosford, and died in 1805, leaving an only daughter, Millicent, who married the 6th Duke of Manchester (1799-1855) and died in 1848.

Estates in 1883: Hunts 13,835 acres, Cambs 1,124 acres, Beds 55 acres, Co Armagh 12,298 acres, total 27,312 acres worth £40,360 a year.