Catalogue description Francis Thomas de Grey Cowper, 7th Earl Cowper

A Memoir of Earl Cowper, KG was privately published by his widow in 1913. A copy of this volume is available in the Record Office Library

Francis Thomas de Grey Cowper was born at Berkeley Square, London on 11th June 1834. He attended Harrow School and then a private school at Silsoe in Bedfordshire, before matriculating to Christ Church College Oxford, where he obtained his BA with first class honours in law and modern history in 1855.

He succeeded his father as Earl Cowper on 15th April 1856 and was soon afterwards appointed High Steward of Hertford, the first of many such offices he was subsequently to hold, including those of High Steward of Colchester, Deputy Lieutenant of Kent and of Nottinghamshire, Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire and, most notably, Lieutenant General and Governor General of Ireland from 1880-1882 under Gladstone's government.

He became a Knight of the Garter in 1865 and from 1871 until 1874 was a Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms to the Royal Household. Locally, he formed the Hertford Rifle Club which in 1859 became the 1st Hertfordshire Rifle Volunteers. He was Deputy Chairman of the Hertfordshire Quarter Sessions and subsequently Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the Eastern Division of Hertfordshire until his resignation in 1892. In 1889 he became the first Chairman of the Hertfordshire County Council, in which office he continued until 1901.

In 1871, after the removal of their attainder, he assumed the baronies of Dingwall in the Scottish Peerage and Butler of Moor Park in the English Peerage (brought into the family by Henrietta Nassau d'Auverquerque, wife of the second Earl Cowper) and in 1880 succeeded to the barony of Lucas on the death of his mother.

He was married on 25th October 1870 to Katrine Cecilia Compton, eldest daughter of William, 4th Marquess of Northampton, and his wife Eliza. There was no issue of this marriage.

Earl Cowper died at Panshanger on 19th July 1905 at which date the Earldom of Cowper, Viscountcy Fordwich and baronetcy of Cowper became extinct