THE DUKES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 215, 16 October 1909, Page 3

THE DUKES.

HOW THEIR POSSESSIONS STAND TODAY. Dukes just at present appear to lave wt.upoa the nerves of a good - people, including the Chancellor o the Exchequer, but Sir Edward Grey put the nntter in a nutshell when he said tlw> ureter" nmeh like other people. t'iuy w-ir* a»'o the dukes ami other big landowning peers were the wealthiest people in the nation, but while their incomes have steadily declined owing to decreasing rents and increasing taxation, they have been met with the extravagantly increased expenditure of the present day, the pace of which is set by lbfluid and free and unencumbered cash fortunes of modem millionaires. A few of the dukes can play the modern game, matching pound by pound; most can not. Leaving out the Royal Dukes of Cum berland, Comuiught, and Albany, aim the Sovereign Duchies of Laucast'V, Cornwall, aud Rothesay, and ignoring the exotics of France, Spain, aud tlv Papal States, there are 27 dukes, <:, England, of Great Britain, or of l.i' United Kingdom, of Scotland or of jvland. iTHE TWE.YEY-SEVEK The full list arranged in their correct order of precedence is as givin hci - under, and the figures of the acic-ag; ■'■ the family estates and the animal vai': • thereof are as they were in U most cases these figures are the late.-t available, but a period of 25 years must necessarily involve great changes bysale and inheritance, and the last quarter of a century has seen a sad decrease iu the value of agricultural land. In addition, most of the estates are encumbered by dowries, jointures, and portions for younger children, and after • deductions for necessary upkeep the five spendable net income cari in many eases bear little relation to the gross figure which are all that can be ascertained:-

* Not inclusive of the value of min.s or of shooting. t Mineral rent. % Granton H'our. | Mines. ]| This return does not include the Metropolitan area. Space, of course, forbids an analys.6 of the resources of all the dukes; but here are some of the prominent ones: The premier duke, to begin with, le of Norfolk, is the heir male of the Howards, but there are a number of English families of more ancient lineage than the Howards, and the real Howard pr.. j perty is small, if, indeed, any of it now remains. The bulk of the existing wealth of the present duke came through the marriage of Thomas, fourth (Howard) duke, with the daughter and heiress of Henry EitzAlan, Earl of Arundel,' which brqjight Arundel Castle, the London estate, and the Sheffield estate. Though the value of the duke's agricultural land has diminished, his enormous urban property in London and Sheffield has much increased. A few years aoo he sold the market tolls of Sheffield for'the round sum of half a million, and Bine* then he has sold a Holbein. Altogether bis yearly income is now reputed to be nearly £200,000. BEDFORD, DEVONSHIRE, AND HAMILTON. The Duke of Bedford, bead of the powerful house of Russell, starts his pedigree with Henry Russell, M.l\ for Weymouth, living in 1455. This dukedom, like the one preceding, was a reward for services in the devolution. The duke, who is a model landlord, own* the Woburn Abbey estate, and is nowselling the Thoracy estate. Despite tii • large gelling price of the latter, the duke has taken the public into his eonfidev.-c and published the full accounts of tint estate. These actually show a loss, and, as Vhe duke himself put it, he would have been unable to live if he had not owned "a few lodging-houses" in London. The few lodging-houses in question are vast Bedford estate in Bloonisbury an. Covcnt Garden Market, by the aid ofi which the duke manages to rub along pretty comfortably.

The Duke of Devonshire is head of the house of Cavendish, a family whiA owes its position to the share of/ the abbey lands obtained at the dissolution of the monasteries by Sir William Cavendish, who had been gentlemau usher to Cardinal Wolsey. The dukedom came, in itt'Jl, after the Revolution, like Leeds and Bedford and others now extinct.

The Duke of Hamilton, the premier Scottish duke, is only Hamilton by female descent. In the male line he is heir male and head of the equally powerful house, of Douglas. He is not tie owner of the vast Hamilton inheritance, -which has devolved upon the Marchioness of Graham, the only child ffthe last duke. The present duke is comparatively poor and lives very quietly. NORTHUMBERLAND. The present Duke of Northumberland descends in tile male line from Sir Hugh Smithson, Bart., of Stanwick, but in the female line he descends from the ancient house of Percy, Earls of Northumberland, and as successor to their estates js in a sense the representative of that family. Under the creation of 174!) Hugh Smithson succeeded to an earldom 01 Northumberland, and, after having been Viceroy of Ireland and Master of the Horse, he was advanced to the dignity of a dukedom.

The Duke of Wellington is rich in the titles and honors bestowed upon the victor of Waterloo, but the constant rumors of a desire to dispose of Apsley House show how the financial fortun-s of th?. Wellesley family (who are Cowley by male descent) have declined. The Duke of Sutherland, in the male line the head of the family of Gower, represents also the Staffordshire house of LevesOn, and the family began its great rise into prominence when Sir William Leveson-Gower married the heiress: of the Granvilles, Earls of Bath, and progressed to the niarquisatc of Stafford after the alliance with the daughter and co-heir of the Duke of Bridgwater. The second marquis married the Countess of Sutherland, which brought Dunrobin Castle and the enormous Sutherland estate into the family, and the dukedom of Sutherland followed in 1833. Tile Staffordshire seat of the duke— Trentham Castle—he has vainly offered as a gift right and left to rid himself of the cost of upkeep, but it is still n his hand». The duke in point of area is the largest landholder, hut the bulk of his Scottish estates have no agricultural value, and would puzzle even the Chancellor of the Exchequer to mulct as undeveloped. The Duke of Westminster draws an income which in the lifetime of his predecessor was between two and three hundred thousand pounds a year from his London property, and which originated in a money-lending and dairy business. The late duke had, however, a family of nine sons and six daughters to provide for, including the endowment of a demi-royalty. The. present duk?, therefore, suceeded to nothing like that. sum, but the Westminster leases arf now falling in every day, and it ftasfi been calculated that on "ordinary business lines of procedure if the duke liv?a I for the space of an average lifetime h<s 1 annual income will have passed a mil- ; lion before his death. '

Acres. Annual Vaiue £ Norfolk 49,800 75,596* Somerset .. 25,387 37,577 Richmond .. 280,411 79,083 3rafton 25,773 39,254 Beaufort .. 51,085 50,220 St. Albans . • 8jl)88 10,955 Leeds 24^37 33,381 Bedford .. 86,300 142,000 Devonshire 188,572 180,750 Marlborough 23,511 30,557 Rutland 70,137 97,480 Hamilton .. 157,380 73,030 07,000t liuccleucn, .. 400,108 217,103 4,000't 10.0001 Argvll 175,000 51,000 Atholl 202,000 42,000 Montrose 103,447 24,872 Itoxburghc .. 00,413 50,917 Portland .. 183,190 88,350 19,57U| Manchester Newcastle-under-Lyme 27,31-2 40,300 35,547 74,541 Norttiuniberland 180,307 170,048 Leinster Wellington .. Sutherland.. 73,100 13,110 1,358,545 55.877 22,102 141,007 Al>ercorn 78,662 53,400 Westminster 19,740 38,994|j Fife .. 249,200 73,814