William Henry Duke of Gloucester
1743 – 1805 · Generation XXXI · House of Hanover
William Henry Duke of Gloucester (1743–1805). A younger brother of George III, he was born at Leicester House to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, and was created Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh in 1764. His health and abilities fell short of the soldiering he wanted, yet he rose through regimental commands to field marshal in 1793. In 1766 he secretly married Maria Walpole, the widowed Countess Waldegrave and an illegitimate granddaughter of Sir Robert Walpole; the king learned of the match only after the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. Their home was St Leonard’s Hill, outside Windsor; of their three children, one died in infancy after a smallpox inoculation. George refused him a field command in the American war. Warden of Windsor Forest and Chancellor of the University of Dublin, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1780, and was buried at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in 1805.
Place in the family
- William Henry Duke of Gloucester was a great-uncle of Queen Victoria.
- William Henry Duke of Gloucester was the fifth of 9 children of Frederick Prince of Wales and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha recorded in this archive.
One of 35 people of House of Hanover (from 1700) in this archive. Called from Germany by the Act of Settlement; the Georges, then Victoria.
Line of descent: Owen Tudor → Edmund Tudor → King Henry VII → Margaret Tudor → King James V of Scotland → Mary Queen of Scots → King James I → Elizabeth Stuart → Sophia of Hanover → King George I → King George II → Frederick Prince of Wales → William Henry Duke of Gloucester.
Parents
- Frederick Prince of Wales (1707 – 1751)
- Augusta of Saxe-Gotha (1719 – 1772)
Siblings
- Augusta of Great Britain (1737 – 1813)
- King George III (1738 – 1820)
- Edward Duke of York (1739 – 1767)
- Elizabeth of Great Britain (1741 – 1759)
- Henry Duke of Cumberland (1745 – 1790)
- Louisa of Great Britain (1749 – 1768)
- Frederick of Great Britain (1750 – 1765)
- Caroline Matilda of Great Britain (1751 – 1775)