Fergus Leveson-Gower, 6th Earl Granville

The Right Honourable
The Earl Granville
Born (1959-09-10) 10 September 1959
EducationUniversity of Aberdeen
Spouse(s)
Anne Topping
​
(m. 1997)​

Florence Pearson
Children5
FatherGranville Leveson-Gower
RelativesWilliam Leveson-Gower (grandfather)
Rose Bowes-Lyon (grandmother)

Granville George Fergus Leveson-Gower, 6th Earl Granville (born 10 September 1959) is a British peer, landowner, and artist. He was known as Lord Leveson until 1996 and was a member of the House of Lords from 1996 to 1999.

Biography

The elder son of Granville Leveson-Gower, 5th Earl Granville, whose mother Rose Leveson-Gower, Countess Granville, was a daughter of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and a sister of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, he was educated at Eton College[1] and from 1973 to 1976 was Page of Honour to Queen Elizabeth II,[2][1] who was his godmother.[3] He then joined the University of Aberdeen to take a degree in English literature and History.[3]

In 1960, his father bought the island of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides from the Duke of Hamilton,[4] and he grew up there.[5]

On 31 October 1996, he succeeded as Earl Granville (1833), Viscount Granville (1814), and Baron Leveson of Stone (1814), all in the peerage of the United Kingdom, at the time giving him a seat in the House of Lords.[1] This was lost when the House of Lords Act 1999 came into force.[6]

Granville is the resident laird of North Uist, living on the island at Callernish House, Griminish, near Lochmaddy, a house shaped like a doughnut designed in the 1960s by Sir Martyn Beckett.[3] In 1999, a local smokehouse business came up for sale and Granville took it over, aiming to produce high quality smoked salmon and sea trout.[5] Twenty years later, managing the Hebridean Smokehouse was reported to have been his "day job" during those years.[3] With a passion for beachcombing, Granville has also become an artist and sculptor, inspired by flotsam and jetsam[3] and has exhibited his work in North Uist and Edinburgh.[7]

On 23 May 1997, Granville married Anne Topping, a daughter of Bernard Topping, and they had three children:[1]

  • Lady Rose Alice Leveson-Gower (born 1998)
  • George James Leveson-Gower, Lord Leveson (born 1999)
  • Lady Violet May Leveson-Gower (born 2002)

In 2021, Granville was reported to be living at Callernish with a new wife, Florence Pearson, an artist, their two young sons, a labrador trained to find ambergris, and a parrot.[3]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Burke's Peerage, volume 2 (2003), p. 1638
  2. ^ The London Gazette, Issue:46848, 12 March 1976, p. 3813
  3. ^ a b c d e f David Profumo, In Focus: Fergus Granville, the driftwood sculptor inspired by North Uist, Country Life, 5 February 2021, accessed 25 January 2023
  4. ^ Bill Lawson, North Uist in History and Legend (Birlinn, 2004), p. 208
  5. ^ a b Caroline Boucher, The earl who smokes for a living, The Guardian, 10 October 2004, accessed 28 January 2023
  6. ^ Mr Granville Leveson-Gower, September 10, 1959-, Hansard, accessed 28 January 2023
  7. ^ About page, fergusgranville.com, accessed 25 January 2023
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