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Authorised form of nameCavendish; Spencer Compton (1833 - 1908); 8th Duke of Devonshire
Dates1833 - 1908
NationalityBritish
Place of birthHolker Hall, Lancashire, England
Date of birth23 July 1833
Place of deathHotel Metropole, Cannes, France
Date of death24/03/1908
DatesAndPlacesBurial:
Edensor, near Chatsworth, Derbyshire
ActivityEducation:
Privately; Trinity College, Cambridge. LLD (1862), DCL (1878, Oxford)
Career:
MP for North Lancashire (1857-1868); Under Secretary for War (1863-1866); Privy Councillor (1866); Secretary for War (1866 and 1882-1885); Postmaster General (1868-1871); MP for Radnor (1869-1880); Chief Secretary for Ireland (1871-1874); Secretary for India (1880-1882); MP for North East Lancashire (1880-1885); MP for Rosendale division (1885-1891); Chancellor of the University of Cambridge (1892-1908); President of Council (1895-1903); died of pneumonia
Freemason, initiated, as Lord Cavendish (his style 1834-1835) 12 December 1853, passed 19 January 1854, raised 13 March 1854, Scientific Lodge No 105 (subsequently No 88) Cambridge.
Honours:
KG 1892; GCVO
Membership categoryFellow
Date of election03/03/1892
RelationshipsSon of William Cavendish, 7th Dike of Devonshire (FRS 1829); Marquess of Hartington (1858-1891); married Louise Fredericke Auguste, widow of William Drago Montagu, 7th Duke of Manchester and daughter of Karl Franh Viktor, Count von Ahlen, of Hannover and his wife Hermine de Schminke
SourceSources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB
The Library and Museum of Freemasonry, ;Freemasons and the Royal Society; Alphabetical List of Fellows of the Royal Society who were Freemasons' (2010), page 18
Obituaries:
Proc Roy Soc Series A 1909 vol 82 pp xi-xvii signed by G D L
References:
Vanity Fair 27 March 1869, 21 July 1888, 15 May 1902
Notes:
Styled Lord Cavendish of Keighley between 1834 and 1858 and Marquess of Hartington between 1858 and 1891.
CodeNA1427
Archives associated with this Fellow
RefNoTitleDate
EC/1892/02Cavendish, Spencer Compton, 8th Duke of Devonshire: certificate of election to the Royal Society
IM/Maull/000773Cavendish, Spencer Compton, 8th Duke of Devonshirend
NLB/17/421Copy letter from Michael Foster, to The Marquis of Salisbury [Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil], Arthur James Balfour, Joseph Chamberlain, George Joachim Goschen, Sir John Eldon Gorst, the Duke of Devonshire [Spencer Compton Cavendish], the Earl of Halsbury [Hardinge Stanley Giffard], and Viscount Richard Assheton Cross27 October 1898
NLB/37/472Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to Harrison & Sons24 March 1908
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