Quick Facts
Biography
Lieutenant-Colonel John Francis Granville Scrope Egerton, 4th Earl of Ellesmere, MVO, KJStJ (14 November 1872 – 24 August 1944) was a British peer and soldier from the Egerton family, known as Viscount Brackley before 1914.
Miitary career
Lord Brackley was the eldest son of the 3rd Earl of Ellesmere and his wife, Lady Katherine Phipps.
He was appointed a Captain in the 3rd (Militia) Battalion of the Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment) on 10 March 1894. The battalion was embodied in late 1899 and sent to South Africa to serve in the Boer War. Lord Brackley and most of the battalion left Cape Town for the United Kingdom in early May 1902, shortly before the end of the war. After his return, he was appointed Aide-de-camp to Sir William Knox, Commander of Royal Artillery for 3rd Army Corps. He later served with the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, Royal Scots, stationed at Edinburgh, during World War I, when he was mentioned in despatches.
Family
On 28 October 1905, he married Lady Violet Lambton (the eldest daughter of the 4th Earl of Durham) and they had seven children:
- Lady Anne Katherine (1908–1964), married Geoffrey Babington
- Lady Jane Mary (1909–1978), married Richard Scrope
- Lady Mary (born 1911), married Lt-Col. Conyers Scrope
- Lady Susan Alice (1913–2010), married Maj. John Askew
- John Sutherland (1915–2000)
- Lady Margaret (1918–2004), married Sir Jock Colville
- Lady Alice (1923–1977)
Lord Brackley inherited his father's titles in 1914. He sold his father's seat, St George's Hill House and its 964-acre estate, to master builder W. G. Tarrant, who went on to create Surrey's landmark St George's Hill estate. The new Earl then bought Hatchford End on the family's former estate at Hatchford Park for his unmarried sisters (Lady Mabel Egerton, Lady Alice and Lady Leila). He and Lady Violet moved to Burwood House, now Notre Dame School.
On his own death in 1944, he was succeeded by his only son, John.
Cricket
A cricketer, he captained his own side to the West Indies in the winter of 1904–05.