Robert Charles Edgcumbe

Robert Charles Edgcumbe (born 1 June 1939) is the eighth Earl of Mount Edgcumbe in south-east Cornwall, United Kingdom. He is the son of George Aubrey Valletort Edgcombe and Meta Lhoyer. Robert Charles Edgcumbe married Joan Ivy Wall, daughter of Ernest Wall, in 1960, but they divorced in 1988 and the Earl later remarried a local barmaid from Kingsand. [ [http://thepeerage.com/p3634.htm The Peerage.com] ] He succeeded to his titles in 1982 and previously was an estate manager in New Zealand. Members of the Edgcumbe family have lived in New Zealand since the 1860s.

The current earl and his immediate predecessor both moved to Cornwall on succeeding to the title. The earl's family live in both New Zealand and Cornwall, where he lives in Empacombe House, Cornwall. The heir to the earldom, a half-brother, lives in New Zealand.

The former home of the Edgcumbe family was Mount Edgcumbe House, Cornwall, overlooking Plymouth Sound, whilst an earlier seat of the family was Cotehele, also in Cornwall. The family owned the estate from 1354, when William de Eggecomb married Hillaria, daughter and heiress of William de Cotehele. In 1872 the Earl of Edgcumbe was the sixth largest landowner in Cornwall with 13,288 acres. [ [http://www.who-owns-britain.com/ Who owns Britain ? by Kevin Cahill] ]

Mount Edgcumbe house was completely gutted by incendiary bombs in 1941, but was rebuilt for the sixth earl, and was lived in by the Earls of Mount Edgcumbe until 1987.

The shield of the armorial bearings of the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe are today the same as that borne by Richard Edgcumbe in 1290 and the earl's motto is 'Au plaisir fort de Dieu'. [ [http://www.geocities.com/noelcox/Mount_Edgcumbe.htm The Earl of Mount Edgcumbe] ]

ee also

*Great Cornish families

References