The Great Hall.
The present peer, William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, Marquis of Hartington, Earl of Devonshire, Earl of Burlington, Baron Cavendish of Hardwick, Baron Cavendish of Keighley, &c., &c., K.G., LL.D., F.R.S., Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the County of Derby, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Steward of the Borough of Derby, &c., &c., was born in 1808, and was educated at Eton, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated as M.A., and was Second Wrangler, Senior Smith’s Prizeman, and in the first class of the Classical Tripos, 1829. In the same year he became M.P. for the University of Cambridge, which he held until 1831, when he was returned for Malton, and afterwards for North Derbyshire, for which constituency he sat until he succeeded his father as Earl of Burlington, in 1834. In 1856 he was made Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, a post he held until 1858, when, on attaining to the Dukedom of Devonshire, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire. From 1836 to 1856 he was Chancellor of the University of London, and he has held, and still holds, several other important offices. In 1829 his Grace, then Mr. Cavendish, married his cousin, the Lady Blanche Georgiana Howard, fourth daughter of George, sixth Earl of Carlisle, by the Lady Georgiana Dorothy Cavendish, daughter of the fifth Duke of Devonshire. By this truly estimable lady, who died in 1840, his Grace had surviving issue, three sons and one daughter, viz.:—Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquis of Hartington; Lord Frederick Charles Cavendish, M.P. for the West Riding of Yorkshire, Private Secretary to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, married to the Hon. Lucy Caroline, daughter of Baron Lyttelton; Lord Edward Cavendish, late M.P. for East Sussex, married to Emma, daughter of the late Hon. William Lascelles; and the Lady Louisa Cavendish, married to Rear-Admiral the Hon. Francis Egerton, M.P. for East Derbyshire, brother to the late, and uncle to the present, Earl of Ellesmere.
The Marquis of Hartington, the heir to the titles and estates, was born in 1833, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated as B.A. in 1852, M.A. in 1854, and LL.D. in 1862. He is a Privy Councillor, and was Lord of the Admiralty in 1863, Undersecretary of State for War from 1863 to 1866; Secretary of State for War in 1866; and Postmaster-General from 1868 to 1871. He was attached to Lord Granville’s special mission to Russia in 1856, and has filled many important posts. His lordship, who is unmarried, is M.P. for Radnor, and is now Secretary of State for Ireland.
Lord George Henry Cavendish, brother to the Duke of Devonshire, is M.P. for North Derbyshire, which constituency he has represented since the year 1834. He married in 1835 the Lady Louisa, daughter of the Earl of Harewood. Lord Richard Cavendish, another brother of the duke, is unmarried.
His Grace is patron of thirty-nine livings, and in Derbyshire alone is Lord of the Manor of forty-six places.
The arms of the duke are—Sable, three harts’ heads, caboshed, argent, attired or. Crest, a serpent, noued, proper. Supporters, two bucks, proper, each wreathed round the neck with a chaplet of roses, alternately argent and azure.
We now, for the present, leave the genealogical part of our story to turn to the attractions of the interior of the Hall. Of the exterior and interior of the old hall and their surroundings we shall speak later on.
The Grand Staircase.