Grenville family, Dukes of Buckingham

The Grenville family was established at Wotton Underwood (Buckinghamshire) in the 11th century. Richard Grenville (1677-1727) married in 1710 Hester, daughter of Sir Richard Temple, 3rd baronet, of Stowe (Buckinghamshire), whose family also owned estates in Oxfordshire (Finmere), Northamptonshire and Warwickshire (Burton Dassett). She succeeded her brother as Viscountess Cobham and was created Countess Temple in 1749; on her death in 1752 the Stowe estate passed to her son Richard Grenville-Temple (1711-79) as 2nd Earl Temple. He also inherited the Eastbury (Dorset) estate from his cousin George Bubb Doddington, Baron Melcombe (d. 1762).

The 2nd Earl Temple was succeeded as 3rd Earl by his nephew, George Nugent-Temple-Grenville (son of George Grenville, the Prime Minister), who married Mary Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Robert Craggs Nugent, Earl Nugent (d. 1788), bringing estates in Cornwall (St. Mawes), Essex (Gosfield, formerly owned by the Knight family) and Ireland. He was created Marquess of Buckingham in 1784. On his wife's death in 1812 the Irish estates passed to her second son (who also succeded her as 2nd Baron Nugent) but the English estates descended to her eldest son, who succeded his father the following year as 2nd Marquess of Buckingham.

Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Marquess of Buckingham (1776-1839) married in 1796 Anna Elizabeth Brydges (d. 1836), daughter and heir of the 3rd Duke of Chandos (d. 1789), through whom the Grenvilles inherited estates in Middlesex (Canons, formerly held by the Lake family), Hampshire and Wiltshire (Avington etc.), Somerset (Keynsham etc.) and Derbyshire, as well as plantations in Jamaica (from the wife of the 3rd Duke). The 2nd Marquess was created 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos in 1822.

His son, the 2nd Duke (1797-1861), who married a daughter of the 1st Marquess of Breadalbane (see Campbell, Earls of Breadalbane), was bankrupted in 1848. Many outlying estates in Buckinghamshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset and elsewhere were sold, together with the manuscript collections and some family papers from Stowe itself. On the death of the 3rd Duke in 1889 his estates passed to his daughter Mary Morgan (later Morgan-Grenville), Baroness Kinloss (1852-1944), who sold the archive from Stowe in the early 1920s.

Estates in 1883: 9,511 acres in Buckinghamshire; 498 acres in Cornwall; 236 acres in Oxfordshire; 232 acres in Middlesex and 5 acres in Somerset, worth a total of £18,080 a year.