The Marquess of Londonderry | |
|---|---|
Stewart,_Later_3rd_Marquess_of_Londonderry,_1812,_oil_on_canvas,_National_Portrait_Gallery,_London.jpg) | |
| Tenure | 1822–1854 |
| Predecessor | Robert Stewart |
| Successor | Frederick Stewart |
| Born | 18 May 1778 Mary Street, Dublin |
| Died | 6 March 1854 (aged 75) Londonderry House, London |
| Buried | Longnewton, County Durham |
| Spouse(s) |
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| Issue Detail | |
| Father | Robert Stewart, 1st Marquess of Londonderry |
| Mother | Lady Frances Pratt |
Charles William Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, KG, GCB, GCH, PC (born Charles William Stewart; 1778–1854) was an Anglo-Irish nobleman, a British soldier and a politician. He served in the French Revolutionary Wars, in the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and in the Napoleonic wars. He excelled as a cavalry commander in the Peninsular War (1807–1814) under John Moore and Arthur Wellesley (became Wellington in 1809).
On resigning from his post under Wellington in 1812, his half-brother Lord Castlereagh helped him to launch a diplomatic career. He was posted to Berlin in 1813, and then as ambassador to Austria, where his half-brother was the British plenipotentiary at the Congress of Vienna.
He married Lady Catherine Bligh in 1804 and then, in 1819, Lady Frances Anne Vane, a rich heiress, changing his surname to hers, thus becoming Charles Vane instead of Charles Stewart. In 1822 he succeeded his half-brother as 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, inheriting estates in the north of Ireland where, as an unyielding landlord, his reputation suffered in the Great Famine. It was a reputation he matched as a coal operator on his wife's land in County Durham. In opposition to the Mines and Collieries Act of 1842, he insisted on his right to use child labour.