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Henry Portman, 2nd Viscount Portman

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"An old Master"
Portman as caricatured by Spy (Leslie Ward) in Vanity Fair, November 1898

William Henry Berkeley Portman, 2nd Viscount Portman,[1] GCVO (12 July 1829 – 16 October 1919) was a British Liberal Member of Parliament.

Background

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Portman was the son of Edward Portman, 1st Viscount Portman and Lady Emma Lascelles, daughter of Henry Lascelles, 2nd Earl of Harewood.

Political career

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Portman was elected to Parliament for Shaftesbury in 1852, a seat he held until 1857,[2] and then represented Dorset from 1857 to 1885.[3] In 1888 he succeeded his father and entered the House of Lords.

Estates

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At the end of the nineteenth century the 99-year leases on the family properties in London came up for renewal, generating a colossal income for Lord Portman of some £100,000 a year. With this fortune he commissioned Norman Shaw to build a new mansion for him at the family seat in Bryanston, Dorset. Within 30 years, however, it had been sold to Bryanston School, which is still based there. This was because it rapidly became anachronistic and uneconomic even for an aristocratic family to occupy a house on such a scale, and the family was also crippled by death duties when the second Viscount's heir and his heir's heir died within ten years of him.

Family

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Son of Edward Portman, 1st Viscount Portman (9 July 1799 – 19 November 1888) and Lady Emma Lascelles (16 March 1809 – 8 February 1865)

William Henry Berkeley Portman married Mary Selina Charlotte FitzWilliam (9 Jan 1836 – 3 January 1899), daughter of William Charles FitzWilliam (18 Jan 1812 – 8 November 1835), son of the 5th Earl Fitzwilliam,(1786–1857) and Lady Selina Charlotte Jenkinson, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Liverpool, on 21 June 1855.[4]

They had six sons and two daughters:

Two of his sons predeceased him and all four of the others succeeded to his title in the course of time (see the titles in the names above).

Lord Portman's first wife died in 1899. In 1908 he married, secondly, shortly before his 79th birthday, Frances Maxwell Buchanan Cuninghame, by whom there were no further children. Lord Portman died in October 1919, aged 90, and was succeeded in his titles by his eldest surviving son, Henry Berkeley Portman.

References

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  1. ^ "William Henry Berkeley Portman, 2nd Viscount Portman of Bryanston". The Peerage. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
  2. ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "S" (part 2)
  3. ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "D" (part 2)
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Person Page".
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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Shaftesbury
18521857
Succeeded by
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Dorset
18571885
With: Henry Ker Seymer 1857–1864
Henry Gerard Sturt 1857–1876
John Floyer 1864–1885
Edward Digby 1876–1885
Constituency divided
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Viscount Portman
1888–1919
Succeeded by
Henry Berkeley Portman