| Norborne Berkeley | |
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| In office 1768 – 1770 |
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| Preceded by | Francis Fauquier |
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| Succeeded by | John Murray, 4th earl of Dunmore |
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| Born | c1717 Stoke Gifford, Gloucestershire, England |
| Died | October 15, 1770 Governor's Palace, Williamsburg, Virginia |
| Spouse(s) | never married |
Norborne Berkeley, 4th Baron de Botetourt (c1717 – October 15, 1770), courtier, MP, and royal governor of Virginia from 1768 to 1770.
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Life
Norborne Berkeley was born about 1717 in Stoke Gifford, Gloucestershire, to John Symes Berkeley and Elizabeth Norborne. In 1726, at the age of nine, Berkeley was admitted to Westminster School but remained there for only a year. His political career began in 1741 when he was elected MP for Gloucestershire, a seat he held until 1763 when he left the House of Commons to pursue a peerage, the Barony de Botetourt, which had lain in abeyance since 1406. Considered a staunch Tory, Berkeley's fortunes were boosted considerably on the accession of George III in 1760 when he was appointed a Groom of the Bedchamber. He was named Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire in 1763 and then, in April 1764, his petition for the Barony was confirmed. Shortly thereafter he took a seat in the House of Lords as the 4th Baron de Botetourt and, in 1767, appointed Lord of the Bedchamber.
Having ruined his fortune in a failed mining project, by the late 1760s Botetourt was in serious need of a steady income. His allies in the British government, Lord Bute chief among them, found one for him as governor of Virginia, a position to which Botetourt was appointed on 29 July 1768. Although he proved to be very popular among many Virginians, he was to enjoy the post for only two years, dying in Williamsburg on 15 October 1770, after an illness lasting several weeks.
Botetourt never married and so left no direct heirs. It has been speculated that Sir Charles Thompson, a naval officer and baronet, born about 1740, was his illegitimate son. Botetourt was the legal guardian of his nephew, Henry Somerset, 5th duke of Beaufort, from the time of the death of the 4th duke in 1756. His niece was the celebrated Mary Isabella Manners, duchess of Rutland, a social and political rival of the duchess of Devonshire. [1]
Statues
A statue of Lord Botetourt was placed in the Capitol in Williamsburg in 1773. The Capital of Colonial Virginia was located in Williamsburg from 1699 until 1780, but at the urging of Governor Thomas Jefferson, was moved to Richmond for security reasons during the American Revolution.
The statue of Lord Botetourt was acquired by the College of William and Mary and moved to the campus from the former Capitol building in 1801. Barring a brief period during the Civil War when it was moved to the Public Asylum for safety, it stood in the College Yard until 1958 when it was removed for protection from the elements, and then installed in the new Earl Gregg Swem Library in 1966 in the new Botetourt Gallery. In 1993, as the College celebrated its Tercentenary (300th anniversary), a new statue of Lord Botetourt, created in bronze by William and Mary alumnus, Gordon Kray, was installed in the College Yard in front of the Wren Building, in the place occupied for so many years by the original. [2]
Named for Him
Botetourt County, Virginia, was named in Lord Botetourt's honour. Historians also believe that Berkeley County, West Virginia, and the town of Berkeley Springs, both now in West Virginia, were also named in his honour, or possibly that of another popular colonial governor, Sir William Berkeley. [2]
Lord Botetourt High School in the unincorporated town of Daleville in Botetourt County, Virginia is also named in his honour.
Also, the Botetourt Dorm Complex at The College of William and Mary is named in honour of Lord Botetourt.
References
- ^ Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke, eds., The House of Commons, 1754-1790, vol. 2 (1985), 85-86; G.F. Russell Barker, The Record of Old Westminsters, vol. 1 (1928), 81; J. K. Laughton, "Thompson, Sir Charles, first baronet (c.1740–1799)", rev. Tom Wareham, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004); E. H. Chalus, "Manners , Mary Isabella, duchess of Rutland (1756–1831)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004).
- ^ [1]
External links
- Botetourt: The Wrong Man at the Wrong Time? by Taylor Stoermer (University of Virginia)
| Parliament of Great Britain | ||
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| Preceded by Thomas Chester Benjamin Bathurst |
Member of Parliament for Gloucestershire with Thomas Chester 1741–1763 |
Succeeded by Thomas Chester Thomas Tracy |
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| Preceded by The Lord Ducie |
Vice-Admiral of Gloucestershire 1762–1766 |
Succeeded by The Earl of Berkeley |
| Preceded by The Lord Chedworth |
Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire 1762–1766 |
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| Peerage of England | ||
| Abeyant | Baron Botetourt 1764–1770 |
Abeyant |
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