George Grenville

From the Chaplin and Skinner family book:

Born on 31st December, 1789, he married Anne Lucy Poulett on 6th September, 1813: he travelled abroad a great deal, and in the years 1832-1835 acted as High Commissioner for the Ionian Islands. He was four times member of Parliament for the Borough and Hundreds of Aylesbury, and at his election in October, 1812, he was proposed by Colonel Nugent, as is subsequently mentioned. The greater part of his life, when in England, was spent at Lillies, his seat at Hardwick, about three miles from Aylesbury. He died on 26th November, 1850, without issue, when the title became extinct. He was buried at Wotton, near Aylesbury.

When recently at Ayleshury (April, 1902) I ascertained that one George Turpin, Lord Nugent's valet, who had been with him in the Ionian Islands, and accompanied him in all his travels, had only died two months previously, in his 91st year. I was told by his great niece, who keeps the Plough Inn at Bierton, where he died, that until within a few months of his death he was in full possession of his faculties, and spoke frequently of his travels and of his old master, to whom he was devotedly attached. He was with him at his death, and his great niece still has Lord Nugent's hat and sword and coronation robe. A print of Lord Nugent and a portrait of Lady Nugent still hang in the parlour of the Plough Inn, opposite the seat where old Turpin spent the last years of his life, and up to the present Mrs. Miles has not been willing to part with them, though she has several times told me she will think it over. The village still tells of the familiar manner in which he talked with Italian organ grinders and French onion boys in their native languages. About the same time I was at Hardwick, the nearest village to Lillies, and made the acquaintance of an old gentleman who well remembered Lord Nugent, and how he used to ride about the country on a great black stallion with pistols in his holsters; a very tall man and handsome, and a great terror to all poachers and tramps.

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