DARTMOUTH and DARTMOUTH

The Earls who have held the title and something of their associations with the College that bears their name

WRITING in the late winter of 1769-70 to the nobleman who served as president of the English board of trustees for his Indian Charity School, the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock announced to his patron the creation of a new college. Reporting Governor John Wentworth's action in issuing, by authority of George III, a royal charter for this institution, Doctor Wheelock declared:

... he cheerfully consented I should express my Gratitude & Duty to your Lordship by christianing it after your name[.] And as there seemd to be danger of many Embarrassments in my way in the present ruffled & distemperd state of the Kingdom, I thought prudent to embrace the first opportunity to accomplish it, and by that means could have no Time to know your Lordships Pleasure in that matter before it should be accomplished, which I hope you will accept as excuse for that neglect, and esteem it to be, as it is designd, an Expression of my Duty & Respect to your Ldshp., and a small acknowledgment of the many & great obligations which your Condesention & Goodness have laid me & my School under to you, but if I have errd as to the matter or Manner of it, you will be so good as to impute it wholly to my head & not to my Heart.

Thus did the Rt. Hon. William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, learn of the unexpected honor bestowed upon him across the expanse of ocean that separated America from the mother country - in a land in which he took a sympathetic interest and in whose affairs he played a prominent and influential role while a Minister in the government of his step-brother, Lord North.

Not only was Lord Dartmouth a good friend of the American colonies, but as the historian G. O. Trevelyan has pointed out, "The colonists saw that Dartmouth understood their ways and was at one with them on matters which he regarded as infinitely higher and more important than any political differences."

Another scholar has more recently observed that quite apart from considerations of his ability or accomplishments in office, "It is remarkable to read ... a number of accounts and descriptions of Lord Dartmouth, both contemporary and modern, English and American, and discover how unanimous public opinion has been in regard to certain features of his personality. Virtually everyone who ever penned a line about him has felt compelled to use one or more of the following adjectives: amiable, pious, mild, honest, well-meaning, upright, conciliatory. Even the radical American propagandists of the 1770'5, who usually found it so easy to malign royal Ministers of the period, had a difficult time convincing the colonists that Dartmouth had any serious faults. . . It is an interesting coincidence that Lord Dartmouth had, in fact, a family relationship to the man who after successfully leading the Revolutionary forces through the war was, with the coming of peace, to be elected first President of the United States. In examining the Legge family arms - as distinct from the coat of arms used in common by all Earls of Dartmouth to denote their rank and station one finds in the sinister chief position of the quartered shield the bars and mullets of the Washingtons of Sulgrave, County of Northampton (the same emblems that are sometimes said to have been taken over from that source as the basis for the stars and stripes in the design of the American flag).

Educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Oxford, Lord Dartmouth had succeeded to the earldom in 1750 at the age of nineteen upon the death of his grandfather, the Ist Earl, who had enjoyed the confidence of Queen Anne and who acted as a Commissioner of the Board of Trade, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, joint Keeper of the Signet for Scotland, Lord Privy Seal, and at the death of Her Majesty became one of the Lords Justices of Great Britain until the arrival in England of George I. In 1711 the grandfather had been advanced in the peerage from the rank of 2nd Baron Dartmouth to that of Viscount Lewisham, in the County of Kent, and Earl of Dartmouth.

The 2nd Earl took his seat in the House of Lords in May 1754. In 1765 he became President of the Board of Trade and Foreign Plantations and was admitted to the Privy Council. He resigned his office in 1766, but six years later was made Secretary of State for the Colonies and held, concurrently, this post and his former one as well, until November 1775, when he was appointed Lord Privy Seal. Resigning in 1782 on the fall of the Lord North government, he served for several months as Lord Steward of the Household, his last political office. In 1786 he was made High Steward of Oxford University.

The careers of his heirs and successors in the period of over a century and a half that has passed since the death of the noble lord for whom the College was named have created impressive records of service to the Crown and good works in behalf of their countrymen.

The 3rd Earl, whose honors included that of becoming a Knight of the Order of the Garter, Britain's highest order of knighthood, had already established himself in a career in statesmanship when he succeeded his father in 1801. Elected in 1778 to the House of Commons, in 1782 he was made Lord of the Bed Chamber to the Prince of Wales (subsequently King George IV) and in the following year was appointed Lord Warden of the Stannaries. In 1801, the year of his father's death, he was admitted to the Privy Council and became President of the Board of Control, both prior to first taking his seat in the House of Lords. He was made Lord Steward of the Household in 1802 and an official trustee of the British Museum.

In 1804 Lord Dartmouth became His Majesty's Lord Chamberlain. In this high office, in which the incumbent ranks as the second dignitary of the court, it was part of his responsibility to pass upon all dramatic entertainments proposed for stage production in Britain, and within the manuscripts collections in the College Library today is preserved a license issued by him in February 1805 for the staging at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, of a play entitled The Lady of the Rock.

The 4th Earl of Dartmouth, who assumed the title in November 1810, attended - like his father before him and his son, grandson, and great-grandson after him (the 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th Earls) - both Eaton and Christ Church, Oxford. He became a Member of Parliament for Milborne Port but served just under a year before being called to the Lords on his father's death. He held an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws degree from Oxford and was a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries.

The 4th Earl's son inherited the family title in 1853 after having represented South Staffordshire in Commons since 1849. He was Honorary Colonel of the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the Staffordshire Regiment and Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the county.

The 6th Earl, after serving in the House of Commons from 1878 as Member, first, from West Kent and, secondly, from Lewisham, moved into the upper house in 1891. For several years he had been the Conservative Whip in the Commons and for the periods 1885-86 and 1886-91 was Vice Chamberlain of the Household. An ardent cricketer, he became in 1893 President of the famous Marylebone Cricket Club and was a trustee of the club at his death. A Privy Counsellor, in 1917 he became a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and in 1928 a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order.

The Rt. Hon. Sir William Legge, 7th Earl of Dartmouth, who died last February, assumed the coronet of the earldom in March of 1936. From 1907 to 1910 he had been a member of the London County Council for Lewisham and represented West Bromwich in Commons from 1910 to 1918. During the years 1930-48 he was High Bailiff of Westminster and Searcher of the Sanctuary, and for the period 1928-36 in the right of his wife, daughter of the late Marquess of Lincolnshire, he executed by royal warrant the office of Lord Great Chamberlain. As his father had done, he became President of the MCC and also was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order.

WRITING in 1930 of the friendship formed between the College and his great-great-grandfather, its eponymous patron of over 150 years before, the 6th Earl expressed his pleasure at the long continuance of this college-family association. "It survived," he pointed out, "the War of Independence, and today the links of the chain that binds Dartmouth to Dartmouth are stronger than ever before...."

Skimming back through the records of the College, one finds here and there documentation of the forging of some one or another of the more tangible links in the chain of association and friendship of which Lord Dartmouth wrote. One instance, for example, is the letter from the 4th Earl, who had lately presented to the College the great portrait of the 2nd Earl which now hangs in Dartmouth Hall.

And many alumni will still vividly remember the stirring events of a half-century ago when, at last, direct personal contact was achieved between Dartmouth and Dartmouth: when the 6th Earl came to see "his" college and to lay the cornerstone for the new Dartmouth Hall, bringing with him as a gift to the College, for preservation among its archives, the correspondence from his great-great-grandfather's files relating to Wheelock's Indian Charity School and the founding of Dartmouth.

A person of great charm and keen wit, accompanied by his gracious Countess and their lovely daughter, Lady Dorothy, Lord Dartmouth immediately won the esteem and affection of undergraduates, faculty, and alumni alike.

An extract from an undergraduate letter of that time reveals most of the highlights of the visit:

The Earl arrived Tuesday afternoon and the whole college assembled to cheer him. That afternoon there was a football game for his benefit and Tuesday night on the athletic field in an open air theatre made especially for the occasion were held about a dozen tableaux representing historical events in the collegers] life as well as stereopticans and lectures on the same subject.

The next morning the Earl was given a degree by the college and the exercises were fine.

Wed. noon the Earl [came to] eat dinner with the students and in the afternoon the whole college marched and escorted the Earl to the cemetary where services were had at the founder's tomb.

After this exercises were held in the church and then the cornerstone was laid.

In the evening came the alumni banquet at which the marshal of each class was to usher so we four were the only undergraduates there and of [course] we sat at the dinner. The speeches were great as you can judge from the enclosed menu.

Yesterday the Earl visited [the American novelist] Winston Churchill and last night there was a bonfire to show him how we celebrate our victories.

He leaves this morning and we will cheer him off as we received him.

You can see that the week has been pretty busy.

After the festivities had concluded and the Earl and his family had departed, he wrote from New York: "Ever since leaving Hanover we have been on the move, [—] at Washington we lunched with the President & here we went to the Great Republican Rally to hear Mr. Root [—] but standing out head & shoulders above all the rest of our most interesting journey is Dartmouth College, which has given us an experience we shall never forget and a memory we shall always treasure."

The 7th Earl, who had not accompanied his father, mother, and sister to Hanover in 1904, and who himself in later years expressed keen regret at not being able to make such a visit, manifested his interest in the College in several ways, perhaps the most conspicuous of which was his generous action and that of Lady Dartmouth in providing air transportation to America in the fall of 1951 for a young Nigerian who has been admitted to Dartmouth but who found himself stranded in London, unable to make arrangements for transatlantic passage and already late for the opening of College. The necessary funds were speedily made available, Lady Dartmouth sent the young man a telegram of bon voyage, and his lordship wrote a solicitous note to President Dickey to say he had told the student, "I would write to you to express the hope that the delay, for which he appears to have been in no way to blame, might not interfere with his career at Dartmouth."

THE most recent of the many pleasant and valued associations between Dartmouth and Dartmouth occurred this past summer when a member of the College staff then in England made a special visit to the new Earl and Countess to carry to them the official greetings of the College, as well as the personal good wishes of President Dickey.

At the 7th Earl's death last February, his only son, Lord Lewisham, having been killed in action at El Alamein in 1942, the family honors devolved upon his lordship's younger brother, Commander the Hon. Humphry Legge, who thereupon was elevated to the peerage as the 8th Earl.

Born in 1888, the youngest of the five children of the 6th Earl, the present Lord Dartmouth entered at an early age upon a naval career, thus following the example set by his ancestor Baron Dartmouth of Dartmouth, the first member of the family to be ennobled by the Crown, and who in the 17th century had distinguished himself in both naval and military spheres.

He joined in 1902 the training ship Britannia and two years later H.M.S.Caesar, the flagship of Lord Charles Beresford. In 1909 he was assigned to the royal yacht Victoria and Albert as one of three sub-lieutenants, and he vividly recalls such occasions as those when the German Emperor and the Czar and Czarina of Russia came on board.

He went to India in 1911 in the Medina when George V and Queen Mary went out to their Durbar in her, and shortly thereafter he was appointed to the staff of Dartmouth, the Royal Naval Training College, where he was responsible for a term of naval cadets.

The greater part of Lord Dartmouth's service in World War I was as Flag Lieutenant to Admiral Sir Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair, who commanded the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron, and he was present at the Battle of Jutland in the battle cruiser Princess Royal. At the war's end, as signal officer in H.M.S. Cardiff he was on the bridge when his ship led the surrendered German fleet to its anchorage off Rosyth on November 21, 1918. .

For his wartime services, and prior to his retirement from the Royal Navy, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.

In 1923 he married Roma, eldest daughter of Sir Ernest Horlick, Bt., son of the Ist Baronet Horlick, founder of the internationally known firm which bears the family's name. They have two children: a daughter, Heather, Lady Herschell, wife of the 3rd Baron Herschell; and a son, Gerald, Lord Lewisham, who in accordance with traditional practice is accorded by courtesy his father's second title: Viscount Lewisham, in the County of Kent. There are three grandchildren: a girl by the union of Baron and Baroness Herschell and two boys by that of Lord and Lady Lewisham.

Lord Dartmouth, who had previously joined the Staffordshire Constabulary, became in 1933 the Chief Constable of Berkshire, a post he held until his retirement in 1954, having been requested to serve an extra year in order that he might be in office at the time of the coronation of Elizabeth II.

In addition to holding the D.S.O. decoration, he is a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, has been awarded the King's Police Medal, and also received the Order of Orange-Nassau from Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who resided in Berkshire during the Second World War after being forced to leave her own country.

An enthusiastic sportsman over the years, Lord Dartmouth's recreational interests have centered upon shooting, fishing, cricket, and golf.

In retirement the Earl and Countess make their home at Worthing in Sussex, a residential resort on England's channel coast nearly sixty miles from London, where, to their pleasure, as a continuing reminder of the ties between College and family they regularly receive, and proudly display, their copies of the DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE.

The present Earl of Dartmouth, 8th in the line of succession,and the Countess, photographed in England last summer.

The arms of the Earls of Dartmouth

The Earl and Countess of Dartmouth and their daughter, Lady Dorothy, in Hanover in 1904 when the 6th Earl came to lay the cornerstone of restored Dartmouth Hall. Behind them are President and Mrs. Tucker, Prof, and Mrs. C. F. Richardson, and Mr. and Mrs. Charles T. Gallagher of Boston.