Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough
Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough (* November 13, 1871, † June 30, 1934 ) was a British politician and nobleman. In allusion to the title of Earl of Sunderland, which he led as a courtesy title from 1871 to 1883, he was described by his contemporaries as Sunny Marlborough.
Life and work
Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill was the eldest son of George Spencer-Churchill, 8th Duke of Marlborough, born in 1871. After the death of his father in 1883 he inherited his title and rank, its property and assets and took his seat in the House of Lords.
Between 1899 and 1905, Spencer-Churchill belonged to the conservative governments Salisbury and Balfour. In the government Salisbury, he served from 1899 to 1902 as Paymaster General ( Paymaster - General ), the third-highest official in the British Treasury. From 1902 to 1905 he served in the government of Arthur Balfour as Under Secretary in the Colonial Office. At a higher political level, the Duke in 1911 did the last time out, when he voted in the House of Lords against the Parliament Bill, which sought to curtail the influence of the upper house.
1915 gave Winston Churchill, a cousin Spencer - Churchill, whose early campaigns of the Duke had financed, this the post of Lord Lieutenant for the county of Oxfordshire. This office had Spencer-Churchill finally held until his death in 1934. Churchill's attempts to install the Duke as Governor General of Australia, failed, however, in 1904 the resistance of Joseph Chamberlain.
In the interwar period, the Duke stood out above all by its distinctions about the British newspapers reported extensively, as well as by his paranoid and anti-Semitic political views even further urged him politically sidelined. Socially stood Spencer - Churchill - in particular because of its consideration was unethical second marriage - also in extremely bad reputation: for example, both Edward VII and George V, to receive the Duke at Court refused. Financially, Spencer-Churchill not a success in the management of family assets. At the time of his death he was bankrupt and about to the family archives to Yale University to sell. The historian David Carradine marked him for this and for other reasons than a " character of Proustscher wretchedness ."
Family
Spencer-Churchill was the only legitimate son of George Spencer-Churchill, 8th Duke of Marlborough, and a grandson of John Spencer - Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough. An uncle Spencer - Churchill's father's side was the politician Lord Randolph Churchill, father of Winston Churchill, who was thus a cousin of the Duke.
On November 6, 1895 married Spencer-Churchill in New York, the American Consuelo Vanderbilt, a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family, which had come by the railway to great wealth. The marriage had two sons:
- John Albert Edward William Spencer - Churchill, 10th Duke of Marlborough,
- Lord Ivor Charles Spencer-Churchill.
In 1921, the marriage ended in divorce. In the same year married Spencer-Churchill, the American Gladys Marie Deacon. The marriage remained childless and was considered unlucky. Later, the spouses lived separately.
The dowry of his first wife used Spencer - Churchill, to renovate the castle of the Dukes of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace, and to supplement the partially sold in the 19th century on. In addition, he was create by the landscape gardener Achille Duchene the famous water gardens of the palace.
- Duke of Marlborough
- Earl of Sunderland
- Member of the House of Lords
- Knight of the Order of the Garter
- Politicians (19th Century )
- Politicians ( 20th century)
- Briton
- Born in 1871
- Died in 1934
- Man