Earl of Winchilsea

A carte-de-visite portrait of the British peer and Tory politician George James Finch-Hatton (1815-1887), from 1858 the 11th Earl of Winchilsea and 6th Earl of Nottingham.

Winchilsea was the son of George Finch-Hatton, 10th Earl of Winchilsea and 5th Earl of Nottingham and his first wife Lady Georgiana Charlotte, daughter of James Graham, 3rd Duke of Montrose. was elected Member of Parliament for Northamptonshire North in 1837, a seat he held until 1841. In 1858 he succeeded his father in the earldom and entered the House of Lords.

In the mid-1860s, Lord Winchilsea experienced serious financial difficulties, which eventually forced him to leave his property at Eastwell Park in Kent. On 4 December 1868 trustees appointed under the Winchilsea Estate Act (1865) entered into a contract to let Eastwell Park, together with its furnishings and effects, to the Duke of Abercorn for a period of five years. Lord Winchilsea had been obliged to vacate the property some time prior to December 1868, and he was formally adjudged bankrupt on 5 October 1870. Eastwell was next occupied by Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria.

Lord Winchilsea was twice married. He married firstly Lady Constance Henrietta, daughter of Henry Paget, 2nd Marquess of Anglesey, in 1846. They had one son and three daughters. After her death in March 1878 he married secondly Lady Elizabeth Georgiana, daughter of Francis Conyngham, 2nd Marquess Conyngham, in 1882. There were no children from this marriage. Lord Winchilsea died in June 1887, aged 72. His only son, George Finch-Hatton, Viscount Maidstone (1852-1879), had predeceased him, and he was succeeded in his titles by his half-brother, Murray Finch-Hatton.

Lord Winchilsea, his son and his second wife are buried in the cemetery of the now ruined church of St Mary the Virgin at Eastwell Park.

Photographer unidentified.