The Duke of Richmond and Gordon
Dedicated custodian of his family seat, Goodwood, and member for 20 years of the General Synod
THE 10th DUKE OF RICHMOND AND 5th DUKE OF GORDON, who has died aged 87, was less flamboyant than some in the ducal fraternity – he trained as a chartered accountant and devoted much of his time to the business of the Church of England – but made his mark as an able and conscientious custodian of Goodwood, the West Sussex estate that has been in his family for the past 300 years.
The Dukes of Richmond owe their position to the sexual incontinence of Charles II, who conferred dukedoms on six of his illegitimate sons. They are descended from one such, Charles Lennox, whose mother was the king’s French mistress, Louise de Keroualle, created Duchess of Portsmouth by Charles II and Duchesse d’aubigny by Louis XIV.
Lennox was created Duke of Richmond and Lennox in 1675 when he was only three (he was appointed a Knight of the Garter aged nine). As an adult he would change his religion as often as circumstances seemed to dictate, and Swift later described him as a “shallow coxcomb”. In 1720 he purchased the Goodwood estate.
The 2nd Duke, at the age of 18, married the 13-year-old daughter of an earl, apparently as payment for the 1st Duke’s losses at cards. After the wedding, he was sent to Europe with his tutor for three years and on his return declared that he wanted nothing to do with his wife. On a visit to the theatre, however, he saw a beautiful girl and asked to be introduced to her. It was the wife he had not seen for three years, and they went on to have 12 children in the course of a blissfully happy marriage. The 2nd Duke drew up, in 1727, the earliest known rules for cricket, and (anticipating estates such as Woburn and Longleat by more than two centuries) established a private zoo at Goodwood which included tigers, eagles, lions, monkeys and leopards.
The 3rd Duke was noted for his radical political views on issues such as universal suffrage and American independence. The 4th married the daughter of the Duke of Gordon, and their grandson was created Duke of Gordon in 1876.
The 10th Duke of Richmond and Gordon was born Charles Henry Gordon Lennox on September 19 1929, the son of the 9th Duke and his wife Elizabeth (née Hudson), a clergyman’s daughter. His father, known as Freddie, was a celebrated figure in the world of motor racing, having been a driver during the golden age of Brooklands and having founded the Goodwood circuit on the family’s 12,000-acre estate. As the third son, he had never expected to inherit, and on coming down from Oxford had worked in a car factory. On succeeding his father in 1935 he was faced by crippling death duties and was forced to sell the family’s extensive estates in Scotland.
After Eton, Charles (by now known by his courtesy title, the Earl of March) elected to go to William Temple College in Rugby, which trained lay men and women to relate the Christian faith to the secular world. After serving as a 2nd lieutenant with the 60th Rifles in 1949-50, he trained as a chartered accountant, and from 1960 to 1964 worked in the financial controllers department at Courtaulds in Coventry. From 1964 to 1968 he was director of industrial studies at William Temple College.
After the Second World War, Goodwood House had been opened to the public, and the Goodwood Estate Co formed to control various businesses, such as timber, farming and market gardening. In 1961 Lord March’s father had created a pension company to benefit workers on the estate, and in 1969 (20 years before his death) he made over Goodwood to his son, having moved to a smaller house on the estate.
The 10th Duke later recalled: “My father had already begun to make some changes … But he was really more of an engineer than a businessman. It was obvious that we had to be more commercial, in the best sense of the word. Of course, these big landed estates are terribly valuable. We are very wealthy, I don’t mind admitting it – in terms of assets.”
One event at Goodwood that needed invigorating was the horse racing, including the “Glorious Goodwood” meeting in late July. As the Duke recalled in 2003: “The grandstand had been built in 1904, from a porous Belgian brick, and was simply worn out. It was obvious we had to rebuild it.” He oversaw a £5 million improvement plan for the racecourse.
The new grandstand was once described as “an eye-catching cross between a suspension bridge and a Bedouin encampment”, but the Duke insisted: “I believe it fits in with Goodwood’s garden party tradition of marquees and flags, Panama hats and parasols.” He also introduced parachutists and bouncy castles to the racing festivities.
Although the Duke was committed to creating “a corporate identity”, he remained anxious to avoid “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” by becoming too commercial: “We have been careful, for instance, not to have an enormous amount of corporate boxes.” He offered the house for weddings; reopened the aerodrome and established a flying school; and set aside some of the land for organic farming.
In 1994 the Duke moved out of Goodwood House in favour of his son, the Earl of March, a former photographer, who is himself proving an innovative custodian of Goodwood. The present Lord March has restored the estate’s historic motor-racing circuit and established the Goodwood Festival of Speed, held each July, and the Revival, held each September.
The estate now also has two 18-hole golf courses and a 91-bedroom hotel, and Rolls-royce Motor Cars has its headquarters there. Goodwood has some 750,000 visitors a year, and as a business turns over about £70million annually, employing around 600 people.
The Duke served as a member of the Church of England’s General Synod from 1960 to 1980 and as a Church Commissioner from 1963 to 1976; he was an active committee member of the World Council of Churches (1968-75) and vice-chairman of the Archbishop’s Commission on Church and State (1966-70). Once, when someone remarked on how often fine weather graced the Glorious Goodwood race meeting, he replied: “Why do you think I was a member of the General Synod for 20 years?”
He was active in promoting business and enterprise in West Sussex, and served as Lord Lieutenant of the county from 1989 to 1994, when he resigned after admitting that he had had an affair with a Croatian-born American travel agent. She spilt the beans in The Sun, and the Duke issued a public apology to his wife and family.
The Duke was chairman of Dexam International Holdings (1969-2011) and Ajax Insurance Holdings (1987-89); director of the Historic Houses Association (1975-82); and president of the South-east England Tourist Board (1990-2003). He was president of the British Horse Society (1976-78) and chairman of the Association of International Dressage Event Organisers from 1987 to 1994. In 1983 he was awarded the Medal of Honour by the British Equestrian Federation.
From 1985 to 1998 he served as Chancellor of the University of Sussex.
He married, in 1951, Susan Grenvillegrey. They had four daughters, two of whom were adopted, and a son, Charles Henry Gordon Lennox, born in 1955, who inherits the titles.
The 10th Duke of Richmond and 5th Duke of Gordon, born September 19 1929, died September 1 2017