Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Albemarle (Earl of), George Thomas Keppel
ALBEMARLE (Earl of), The Right Hon. George Thomas Keppel, third, but eldest surviving son of William Charles, the fourth earl, was born in London, June 13, 1799, and educated at Westminster School. When less than sixteen years old he was gazetted an officer of the 14th Regiment of Foot, and a few months later he escaped unscathed from the field of Waterloo, and entered Paris shoeless and almost in rags. In 1821 he became aide-de-camp to the Governor-General of India, the Marquis of Hastings. Subsequently he made an extensive tour through Arabia, Persia, and Russia (1824), and on his return to England he obtained from the Duke of Wellington an unattached majority, which left him free to go where he pleased. In 1825 he was appointed aide-de-camp to Lord Wellesley, then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. At the same time he held a similar position with the Duke of Sussex in England, and he divided his time between the two countries. Soon after the accession of Queen Victoria he was appointed Groom-in-Waiting to Her Majesty. He represented East Norfolk in the first reformed Parliament (1832–5), and afterwards sat for Lymington (1847–50). For a short period he acted as private secretary to Lord John Russell (1846–7). On the death of his brother, the fifth earl, in 1851, he succeeded to the earldom of Albemarle. His lordship became a Major-General in 1858, Lieutenant-General in 1866, and General in 1874. He is the author of "Personal Narrative of a Journey from India to England, by Bussorah, Bagdad, the Ruins of Babylon, Curtistan, the Court of Persia, the western shore of the Caspian Sea, Astrakhan. Niskney Novogorod, Moscow, and St. Petersburgh, in the year 1824," second edition, 2 vols., 1827; "Narrative of a Journey across the Balcan; also, of a Visit to Azani, and other newly discovered Ruins in Asia Minor, in 1829–30," 2 vols. 1831; "Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham and his Contemporaries," 2 vols., 1852; and "Fifty Years of my Life," an autobiography, 2 vols., 1876, third edition, 1877.