Robert Windsor-Clive, 1st Earl of Plymouth

"Good Works". Caricature by "Spy" (Leslie Ward) published in Vanity Fair in 1906. Memorial to the 1st Earl of Plymouth at St Bartholomew's church, Tardebigge. Windsor-Clive family plot in the cemetery of St Bartholomew's church, Tardebigge, Worcestershire. Robert Windsor-Clive, 1st Earl of Plymouth, GBE, CB, PC (1857–1923), and his family are buried here.

Robert George Windsor-Clive, 1st Earl of Plymouth (27 August 1857 – 6 March 1923), known as the 14th Baron Windsor between 1869 and 1905, was a British nobleman and Conservative politician. He was the founding President of the London Society.

Background Plymouth was born at John Street, Berkeley Square, London, the son of the Hon. Robert Windsor-Clive and Lady Mary Selina Louisa Bridgeman, daughter of George Bridgeman, 2nd Earl of Bradford. His paternal grandparents were the Hon. Robert Clive and Harriett, 13th Baroness Windsor, daughter of Other Windsor, 5th Earl of Plymouth. In 1869 he succeeded his grandmother in the barony of Windsor. He was educated at Eton College and admitted to St John's College, Cambridge, in 1875. He graduated with a B.A. in 1878, a M.A. in 1891, and was awarded an honorary LL.D by the university in 1900.

Landowner As Lord Windsor he commissioned Bodley and Garner to build a new country house at his estate in Hewell Grange near Tardebigge, Worcestershire, which was completed in 1884–1891. The estate had been a seat of his grandmother's Windsor family since the 16th century. There are several ruins of earlier houses on the estate, and a large number of listed buildings, structures and statues.

The Windsor-Clives also lived at St Fagans Castle near Cardiff, mainly during the summer months. The sixteenth-century house is now part of the National Museum of Wales, to which it was donated following the death of the 2nd Earl, and is furnished and decorated as it would have been during their residence.

Political career As Lord Windsor he served under Lord Salisbury as Paymaster General between 1890 and 1892 and was sworn of the Privy Council in 1891. Under Arthur Balfour he was First Commissioner of Works between 11 August 1902 and the Liberal election in 1905, during which period he was responsible for the transformation of The Mall into a processional carriageway and passed the plans for the Queen Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace.

In 1905 the earldom of Plymouth held by his great-grandfather (which had become extinct in 1843) was revived when he was created Viscount Windsor, of St Fagans in the County of Glamorgan, and Earl of Plymouth, in the County of Devon.

Apart from his career in national politics he was Mayor of Cardiff from 1895 to 1896 in which role he hosted a royal visit from the Prince and Princess of Wales and their daughters, Princesses Victoria and Maud. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1905 and a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in 1918, as well as an Officer of the French Legion of Honour

He was Sub-Prior Order of St John of Jerusalem. In February 1900 he was appointed a Trustee of the National Gallery, and he served as the first President of The Concrete Institute (now the Institution of Structural Engineers) between 1908 and 1910. In 1913 he was responsible for purchasing The Crystal Palace for the nation.

From 1914 to 1923, Lord Plymouth was chairman of the National Trust.

Philanthropy In 1911 Lord Plymouth bought London's Crystal Palace, which had fallen into disrepair and bankruptcy, for £230,000 to save it from property developers with the understanding that a fund raised by the Lord Mayor of London would reimburse him. The mayor announced in 1913 that £90,000 was still required in addition to the money already raised by local authorities.

Family Portrait of a wife before marriage, Alberta Victoria Sarah Caroline Paget by Joseph von Kopf. 1882. Museum named after M. A. Vrubel In 1883, Lord Plymouth married Alberta Victoria Sarah Caroline, who was the daughter of Sir Augustus Paget, and born in 1863. They had three sons and one daughter. His eldest son Other Robert Windsor-Clive, Viscount Windsor (1884–1908), predeceased him, as did his third son, Lieutenant Archer Windsor-Clive, of the 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards, killed in action at Landrecies holding the line during the Retreat from Mons. Archer had briefly played cricket for Glamorgan.

Lord Plymouth died suddenly in March 1923, aged 65, at his home in Great Cumberland Place, London, and was buried at Tardebigge, Worcestershire. and was buried next to her husband and their son Other Robert (1884–1908).