William Harcourt, 3rd Earl Harcourt

Field Marshal William Harcourt, 3rd Earl Harcourt, GCB (20 March 1743 – 17 June 1830) was an English nobleman and soldier.

He was the younger son of Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl Harcourt. As a young man he took "an ensigncy" in the First Foot Guards Light Dragoons, in October 1759. The regiment had been raised at his father's expense and was known as Harcourt's Black. In 1760 Harcourt was sent to Mecklenburg-Strelitz to escort to England the consort-elect of George III and he was appointed to a post in the Royal Household.

He was aide-de-camp to Lord Albemarle at Havana in 1762.

He became Lieutenant Colonel of the 16th Light Dragoons in 1768. He served as Member of Parliament for Oxford from 1768 to 1774. He commanded the 16th Light Dragoons in America, and captured General Charles Lee in 1776.

He became a Major-General in 1782 and purchased the house at St Leonard's Hill, Clewer, from the Duke of Gloucester. He was appointed Deputy Ranger of Windsor Great Park. He was promoted to lieutenant-general in 1793 and fought in Flanders with the Duke of York, whom he succeeded as commander. In 1796 he was promoted to general and became Governor of the Royal Military College at Great Marlow.

He succeeded his elder brother George Simon Harcourt, 2nd Earl Harcourt to the earldom in 1809, and was made a field marshal and GCB at the coronation of George IV in 1821, where he bore the Union standard.

He was Equerry to Queen Charlotte from 1761-66 and Master of the Horse from 1809-18. For many years he served as a Groom of the Bedchamber and Deputy Lieutenant of Windsor Castle. He was on terms of close intimacy with the royal family and his Court duties during the King's first illness (ie: mental derangement - the reference is to George III) "were of a very close and confidential nature."

In 1778 he married Mary, widow of Thomas Lockwood of Craig House, Scotland (his wife was sent to accompany Princess Caroline of Brunswick on her wedding journey to England). There were no children, so when Harcourt died the title became extinct. The estates passed to a cousin, Edward Vernon, who was Archbishop of York; on inheriting the estates he changed his name to Harcourt. A statue of Lord Harcourt was commissioned (from Robert William Sievier) with the intention that it should be erected at Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, but at the insistence of the Royal Family, it was placed, instead, in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.

References

* [http://www.clewervillage.co.uk/People.htm Harcourt biography on Clewer website]
* [http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?mkey=mw07454 Image in National Portrait Gallery]