Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of Normanby

Constantine Henry Phipps, 1st Marquess of Normanby (15 May 1797 – 28 July 1863), styled Viscount Normanby between 1812 and 1831 and known as The Earl of Mulgrave between 1831 and 1838, was a British Whig politician and author. He notably served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1835 to 1839 and as Home Secretary from 1839 to 1841 and was British Ambassador to France between 1846 and 1852.

Early life and education Normanby was the son of Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave and Martha Sophia, daughter of Christopher Thompson Maling. His great-grandfather William Phipps had married Lady Catherine Annesley, who was the daughter and heiress of James Annesley, 3rd Earl of Anglesey and his wife Lady Catherine Darnley (an illegitimate daughter of King James II by his mistress Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester). Lady Catherine Darnley had later married John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, and hence Constantine Phipps, 2nd Earl of Mulgrave and later 1st Marquess of Normanby was the step-great-great-grandson of the 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was the second President of the Cambridge Union Society.

Lt.-Gen. Sir Henry Warre was his first cousin, born to his mother's youngest sister, who married Sir William Warre.

Political career Lord Melbourne and the Marquess of Normanby prepare to shoot two pheasants with the heads of the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, with Windsor Castle in the background. Coloured lithograph by John Doyle, After attaining his majority, he was returned on his father's interest for Scarborough in 1818. However, in the summer of 1819, he began to break with his family's Tory politics, and signalised his conversion to the Whigs by joining Brooks' Club on 3 December. When Parliament was dissolved in 1820, Normanby was in Florence, Italy, to which he was a regular visitor. His brother Charles kept up the family interest with the Scarborough corporation, and Normanby was returned in absentia in March, despite being politically at odds with his father. This state of affairs was not to last long: in May, Normanby was compelled to take the Chiltern Hundreds by Lord Mulgrave, to vacate the seat for Mulgrave's brother Edmund.

His standing as a former Tory minister's son made Normanby valuable to the Whigs, and they hoped to return him to Parliament in another seat. An attempt was made to have him put in at St Ives at a by-election in 1821, but support proved to be lacking, and Normanby withdrew without contesting the seat. The illness and death of William Plumer in the beginning of 1822 allowed him to take his seat in February for Higham Ferrers, a pocket borough of the Whig grandee Earl Fitzwilliam.

George Augustus Constantine Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby (23 Jul 1819 - 3 April 1890)

Death Normanby died in London on 28 July 1863, aged 66, and was succeeded in his titles by his son George. The Marchioness of Normanby died in October 1882, aged 84.

Writings The English in Italy, a novel in three volumes (1825):

(four editions). Historiettes, in three volumes (1827):

The English in France, in three volumes (1828):

Yes and No: a Tale of the Day, in two volumes (1828):

The Contrast, in three volumes (1832):