Lord Esmé Gordon-Lennox

Brigadier-General Lord Esmé Charles Gordon-Lennox (10 February 1875 – 4 May 1949) was a British Army officer and public official.

Early life and education Hon. Esmé Gordon-Lennox was born at 3 Grosvenor Crescent, Belgravia into an ancient Scottish family, the second son of Charles, Earl of March and Amy Gordon-Lennox, Countess of March, daughter of Percy Ricardo, of Bramley Park, Guildford, Surrey.

In 1882, his father remarried to Isabel Sophie Craven and had two more daughters, Lady Muriel Beatrice Gordon-Lennox (1884–1969) and Lady Helen Magdalen Gordon-Lennox (1886–1965). His stepmother died in 1887, aged 24, and his father, who succeeded as 7th Duke of Richmond in 1903, never remarried.

He was educated at Eton College. to serve as a staff officer in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony during the Second Boer War, followed by service in Southern Nigeria. and appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1907. He was promoted to major in May 1910.

Following the start of the First World War in August 1914, he rejoined his regiment and went to France with the British Expeditionary Force. His younger brother, Lord Bernard Gordon-Lennox, was killed early in the war at the Second Battle of Ypres. Lord Esmé was badly wounded and sent back to England in 1915 to recover. and appointed a Commander of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1919 New Year Honours.

In 1929, Lord Esmé began his role as Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod and secretary to three successive Lords Great Chamberlain: Viscount Lewisham (1929–1936), Marquess of Cholmondeley (1936), and the Earl of Ancaster. In 1946, he was forced to retire due to poor health and entered a nursing home.

Marriage and family

In 1909, Lord Esmé married the Hon. Hermione Frances Caroline Fellowes, third daughter of the 2nd Baron de Ramsey and his wife, Lady Rosamond Spencer-Churchill, daughter of the 7th Duke of Marlborough and aunt of Winston Churchill. They had one son:

Following his first injury during the war, Lord Esmé drifted away from his wife and by 1919 was involved with someone else. In 1923, his wife sued him for divorce in an Edinburgh court on charges of desertion. She testified that in 1916:

...she noticed a distinct coldness in his manner, but attributed that to the war and his not being well. In 1917, while she and her husband were at Monte Carlo, he said he did not wish to live with her any more, and that they were very unsuited to each other. Later in that year he was again seriously wounded. When the witness saw him at the hospital he always contrived to have a member of his family there, and she never saw him alone. When he was convalescent they discussed the future, but he refused to entertain the idea of resuming their family life together.... he said he liked somebody else. He stated that he was not going back to [her], and the thing must end. — The Times, 28 May 1923 and he married Rosamund Lorys Palmer, daughter of Vice-Admiral Norman Craig Palmer.

They had two children: Sara Carolyn Gordon-Lennox (born 12 May 1933), baptised in the crypt of the Palace of Westminster, married Sir Ewen Fergusson

He died at his home at Weston Lea, Albury, Surrey.

His widow died in 1961.