William Bentinck, 2nd Duke of Portland

Who was William Bentinck, 2nd Duke of Portland?

William Bentinck, 2nd Duke of Portland KG, styled Viscount Woodstock from 1709 to 1715 and Marquess of Titchfield from 1715 to 1726, was a British peer.

Portland was the son of Henry Bentinck, 1st Duke of Portland and his wife Elizabeth Noel, daughter of Wriothesley Baptist Noel, 2nd Earl of Gainsborough. He was an original governor of the Foundling Hospital in London, founded in 1739, and was made a Knight of the Garter in 1741. He married Lady Margaret Harley, daughter of Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer. They had six children:

Lady Elizabeth Bentinck, who married Thomas Thynne, 1st Marquess of Bath

Lady Henrietta Bentinck, who married George Grey, 5th Earl of Stamford

William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland

Lady Margaret Bentinck

Lady Frances Bentinck

Lord Edward Charles Cavendish-Bentinck

Portland is identified in The Handy-book of Literary Curiosities as one of the perpetrators of The Great Bottle Hoax of 1749 in which a large crowd was lured to a London theater with the expectation of seeing a man jump into a "quart bottle".