John FitzRoy, 9th Duke of Grafton

Who was John FitzRoy, 9th Duke of Grafton?

John Charles William Fitzroy, 9th Duke of Grafton, was a British peer, known from 1914-30 as Lord Sudbury.

FitzRoy was the eldest son of William FitzRoy, Viscount Ipswich and his wife Auriol Margaretta Brougham, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. When his father died in a flying accident in 1918, FitzRoy became the heir to his grandfather's titles and succeeded to them in 1930.

In 1929 he gave away his mother on the occasion of her second marriage, to Major Gavin Hume-Gore.

The duke died aged twenty-two, unmarried and childless, after his Bugatti crashed during a motor race in Limerick, Ireland. His dukedom was inherited by his cousin, Charles, but his viscountcy of Thetford and earldom and barony of Arlington fell into abeyance between his sisters, Lady Jane and Lady Mary-Rose. The viscountcy and earldom remain abeyant, but the abeyance of his barony was terminated in 1999, in favour of Lady Jane's eldest daughter, Jennifer.