Gerald Grosvenor, 4th Duke of Westminster

Who was Gerald Grosvenor, 4th Duke of Westminster?

Colonel Gerald Hugh Grosvenor, 4th Duke of Westminster DSO PC was the son of Captain Lord Hugh William Grosvenor and Lady Mabel Crichton and a grandson of Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster.

He was commissioned into the 9th Lancers from Sandhurst in 1926. He was promoted Lieutenant in 1929, Captain in 1936, and Major in 1943. From 1936 to 1938 he served as regimental adjutant and in 1938 he was appointed adjutant of the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry.

He commanded his regiment in World War II as a Lieutenant-Colonel and was wounded in the leg by a shell splinter on 18 July 1944, suffering from attacks of septicaemia for the remainder of his life. In 1947 he was invalided out of the Army, but in 1950 he was commissioned Lieutenant in the Wiltshire Army Cadet Force.

He married Sally Perry on 11 April 1945. They were childless.

In 1952 he was appointed as an Exon in the Yeomen of the Guard.

On 18 February 1955, he was appointed honorary colonel of the Cheshire Yeomanry and on 19 May 1961, he was appointed colonel of the 9th/12th Royal Lancers. In 1959 he served as High Sheriff of Cheshire. He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1964.

He is also known to have ordered the demolition of Alfred Waterhouse's Eaton Hall in 1963, at a time when Victorian architecture was unappreciated. It was replaced by a far smaller, modern house. At the time of the demolition, he was Britain's wealthiest peer.