Leicester Stanhope, 5th Earl of Harrington

Leicester FitzGerald Charles Stanhope, 5th Earl of Harrington, CB (2 September 17847 September 1862), styled The Honourable Leicester Stanhope until 1851, was an English peer and soldier.

Early life Leicester Stanhope was born in Dublin in 1784, the third son of Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Harrington, and Jane Stanhope, Countess of Harrington (née Fleming).

Career Stanhope became a Cornet and Sublieutenant in the 1st Regiment of Life Guards on 1 October 1799. He was promoted lieutenant on 20 October 1802. and on 2 April 1803 purchased a captaincy in the 10th (Prince of Wales's Own) Regiment of (Light) Dragoons. On 9 November 1803, he exchanged into the Carabiniers (6th Dragoon Guards), and on 27 January 1813, into the 17th Regiment of Light Dragoons. In 1807 he served in South America, and was present at the attack on Buenos Aires. He exchanged into the 47th Regiment of Foot while serving there and was appointed Deputy Quartermaster-General on 24 April 1817.

From late 1817 to 1818, Stanhope and his regiment took part in the Third Anglo-Maratha War. On 14 October 1818, he was appointed a Companion of the Bath for his service in the conflict. He resigned as quartermaster on 29 March 1821 and purchased an unattached lieutenant-colonelcy on 26 June 1823. He was brevetted colonel on 10 January 1837.

He is known as a worker with Lord Byron in the cause of Greek independence, although while he was in Greece in 1823 and 1824 his relations with Byron were not altogether harmonious. He wrote A Sketch of the History and Influence of the Press in British India (1823), and Greece, in 1823 and 1824.

Personal life and death On 23 April 1831, at St James's Church, Piccadilly, he married Elizabeth Green, daughter of William Green Harrington House was owned by the family until the First World War; Since 1930 Harrington House has been home to the Russian Embassy.

Stanhope died 7 September 1862, aged 78, at Harrington House. He was succeeded by his son: Sydney Seymour Hyde Stanhope, 6th Earl of Harrington