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William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam

William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam, PC (30 May 1748 – 8 February 1833), styled Viscount Milton until 1756, was a British Whig statesman of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1782 he inherited the estates of his uncle Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, making him one of the richest people in Britain. He played a leading part in Whig politics until the 1820s.

The Right Honourable
The Earl Fitzwilliam
PC

William Fitzwilliam

Charles Wentworth-Fitzwilliam

George III

William Pitt the Younger

The Earl of Westmorland

The Earl Camden

George III

William Pitt the Younger

The Earl Camden

The Earl of Mansfield

George III

Lord Grenville

The Earl Camden

Viscount Sidmouth

William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam
(1748-05-30)30 May 1748

8 February 1833(1833-02-08) (aged 84)

British

Whig

Lady Charlotte Ponsonby
​
​
(m. 1770; died 1822)​
Hon. Louisa Molesworth
​
​
(m. 1823; died 1824)​

Charles Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 5th Earl Fitzwilliam

Family[edit]

Lord Fitzwilliam married firstly Lady Charlotte, daughter of William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough, in 1770. After her death in 1822, he married secondly the Hon. Louisa, daughter of Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth, and widow of William Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby, in 1823. She died soon after in February 1824, aged 74. Lord Fitzwilliam died in February 1833, aged 84, and was succeeded by his son from his first marriage, Charles.

Charles Abbot, 2nd Baron Colchester (ed.), The Diary and Correspondence of Charles Abbot, Lord Colchester. Speaker of the House of Commons 1802–1817. Volume II (London: John Murray, 1861).

William Beresford (ed.), The Correspondence of The Right Honourable John Beresford. Volume II (London: Woodfall and Kinder, 1854).

Edward Gibson, Lord Ashbourne, Pitt: Some Chapters of His Life and Times (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1898).

Henry Grattan, Memoirs of the Life and Times of the Rt. Hon. Henry Grattan. Volume IV (London: Henry Colburn, 1842).

James Harris, 3rd Earl of Malmesbury (ed.), Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury. Volume II (London: Richard Bentley, 1844).

Historical Manuscripts Commission, The Manuscripts of the Earl of Carlisle, preserved at Castle Howard (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1897).

Ross J. S. Hoffman, The Marquis. A Study of Lord Rockingham, 1730–1782 (New York: Fordham University Press, 1973).

Sir Herbert Maxwell (ed.), The Creevey Papers. A Selection from the Correspondence & Diaries of the late Thomas Creevey, M.P. Born 1768 – Died 1838 (London: William Clowes and Sons, Limited, 1904).

The Countess of Minto, The Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliott, First Earl of Minto. From 1751 to 1806. Volume II (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1874).

Edmund Phipps, Memoirs of the Political and Literary Life of Robert Plumer Ward. Volume I (London: John Murray, 1850).

E. A. Smith, Whig Principles and Party Politics. Earl Fitzwilliam and the Whig Party. 1748–1833 (Manchester University Press, 1975).

Earl Stanhope, The Life of The Right Honourable William Pitt. Volume II (London: John Murray, 1867).

Lord Stavordale (ed.), Further Memoirs of the Whig Party. 1807–1821. With Some Miscellaneous Reminiscences. By Henry Richard Vassall, Third Lord Holland (London: John Murray, 1905).

The Correspondence of Edmund Burke

D. Wilson, 'Art, inheritance, law and attribution: the rediscovered portrait of Earl Fitzwilliam by Sir Joshua Reynolds, PRA', The British Art Journal, Vol. XIII, No. 3 [Winter 2012/13], pp. 32–52 (on Sir Joshua Reynolds's portrait of Earl Fitzwilliam and Fitzwilliam's role as an art collector and patron of artists).

R. B. McDowell, 'The Fitzwilliam episode', Irish Historical Studies, XVI (1966), pp. 115–130.

Frank O'Gorman, The Whig Party and the French Revolution (Macmillan, 1967).

E. A. Smith, 'Lord Fitzwilliam's "grand tour"’, History Today, XVII (June 1967), pp. 393–410.

David Wilkinson, 'The Fitzwilliam episode, 1795: a reinterpretation of the role of the duke of Portland', Irish Historical Studies, 29 (1995), pp. 315–39.

David Wilkinson, 'The Pitt–Portland coalition of 1794 and the origins of the "tory" party', History, new ser., 83 (1998), pp. 249–64.

David Wilkinson, ‘’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 27 Dec 2009.

Fitzwilliam, William Wentworth, second Earl Fitzwilliam in the peerage of Great Britain, and fourth Earl Fitzwilliam in the peerage of Ireland (1748–1833)