Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland, (15 December 1792 – 12 February 1865), styled Lord Algernon Percy from birth until 1816 and known as Lord Prudhoe between 1816 and 1847, was a British

naval A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operatio ...

commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank as well as a job title in many army, armies. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countri ...

explorer Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...

and

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

politician.

Early life

Northumberland was the second son of General

Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland Lieutenant-general (United Kingdom), Lieutenant General Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland (14 August 174210 July 1817) was an officer in the British army and later a British peer. He participated in the Battles of Lexington and Concord an ...

, and his second wife Frances Julia, daughter of Peter Burrell. He was educated at Eton and

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...

Naval career

Northumberland entered the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

in March 1805, aged 12, on board HMS ''Tribune'' and served in the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

.''Sussex Advertiser'', 14 February 1865, page 4 In 1815, when only 22, he was promoted to

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

, taking command of HMS ''Cossack'' in August, and commanding her until she was broken up some 10 months later.Starkey, Paul, and Starkey, Janet. ''Travellers in Egypt''. Chapter 9: ''The Journeys of Lord Prudhoe and Major Orlando Felix in Egypt, Nubia and the Levant, 1826–1829''. London/New York: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2001.
/ref> The following year, aged 23, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Prudhoe, of Prudhoe Castle in the County of Northumberland (

Prudhoe Prudhoe ( ) is a town and civil parish in the south of Northumberland, England. It is west of Newcastle upon Tyne and situated on a steep, north-facing hill on the south bank of the River Tyne. Prudhoe had a population of 11,675 at the 2011 ...

being a town in

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

). Between 1826 and 1829 he was part of an expedition to

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

Nubia Nubia (, Nobiin language, Nobiin: , ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the confluence of the Blue Nile, Blue and White Nile, White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), and the Cataracts of the Nile, first cataract ...

and

The Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultura ...

. During that expedition, Prudhoe obtaining the Prudhoe Lions, a pair of

Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

ian

monumental sculpture The term monumental sculpture is often used in art history and criticism, but not always consistently. It combines two concepts, one of function, and one of size, and may include an element of a third more subjective concept. It is often used fo ...

s which he subsequently donated to the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. In 1834, he travelled to the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

with

John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor and experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical work. ...

to study the southern constellations. Northumberland was president of the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck from 1851 to 1865 (partly due to encouragement by George Palmer) during which time he undertook a reorganisation, changing its name to the

Royal National Lifeboat Institution The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is the largest of the lifeboat (rescue), lifeboat services operating around the coasts of the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, as well as on s ...

in October 1854. In 1851 he offered a prize of £200 for a new design of self-righting lifeboat, won by James Beeching, which became the standard model for the new Royal National Lifeboat Institution fleet. In 1862 he became a full

admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in many navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force. Admiral is ranked above vice admiral and below admiral of ...

in the Royal Navy on the Reserved List.

Political career

Northumberland succeeded his childless elder brother in the dukedom in 1847. In 1852 he was sworn of the Privy Council and appointed

First Lord of the Admiralty First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the title of the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible f ...

, with a seat in the cabinet, by the

Earl of Derby Earl of Derby ( ) is a title in the Peerage of England. The title was first adopted by Robert de Ferrers, 1st Earl of Derby, under a creation of 1139. It continued with the Ferrers family until the 6th Earl forfeited his property toward the en ...

, a post he held until the fall of the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

in December 1852. In 1853 he was made a

Knight of the Garter The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry founded by Edward III of England in 1348. The most senior order of knighthood in the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British honours system, it is outranked in ...

Personal life

Northumberland married, aged 49, Lady Eleanor Grosvenor, daughter of

Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster (27 January 1795 – 31 October 1869), styled The Honourable Richard Grosvenor from 1795 to 1802, Viscount Belgrave from 1802 to 1831 and Earl Grosvenor from 1831 to 1845, was an English polit ...

, on 25 August 1842 at

St George's, Hanover Square St George's, Hanover Square, is an Church of England, Anglican church, the parish church of Mayfair in the City of Westminster, central London, built in the early eighteenth century as part of a project to build fifty new churches around London ...

. They had no children. As a result of

gout Gout ( ) is a form of inflammatory arthritis characterized by recurrent attacks of pain in a red, tender, hot, and Joint effusion, swollen joint, caused by the deposition of needle-like crystals of uric acid known as monosodium urate crysta ...

in his right hand, he died in February 1865, aged 72 at

Alnwick Castle Alnwick Castle () is a castle and country house in Alnwick in the English county of Northumberland. It is the seat of the Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland, 12th Duke of Northumberland, built following the Norman Conquest and renovated an ...

and was buried in the Northumberland Vault, within

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1066, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British m ...

. He was succeeded in his titles by his twice first cousin, George Percy, 2nd Earl of Beverley, except for the barony of Percy, which passed through the female line to his great-nephew, John Stewart-Murray, 7th Duke of Atholl. The Duchess of Northumberland died on 4 May 1911. He was a fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

, the Society of Antiquaries, the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

, the

Royal Astronomical Society The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society and charitable organisation, charity that encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, planetary science, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. Its ...

, president of the

Royal United Services Institute The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI, Rusi) is a defence and security think tank with its headquarters in London, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1831 by the Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley ...

and the

Royal Institution The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...

, a director of the

British Institution The British Institution (in full, the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom; founded 1805, disbanded 1867) was a private 19th-century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists; it ...

and a trustee of the

. Northumberland was a good friend of Arctic explorer

Sir John Franklin Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer and colonial administrator. After serving in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and thro ...

, and Prudhoe Bay, on the north coast of

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

, was named after him.

References

External links