was disbanded at Chichester in 1818, when Keppel was appointed to the 22nd (Cheshire) foot, with which he was in Mauritius and at the Cape, returning home with the regiment in 1819. For a time he was equerry to the Duke of Sussex. In 1821 he was promoted to a lieutenancy in the 24th foot, was transferred to the 20th, and ordered to India. There he served as aide-de-camp to the governor-general, the Marquis of Hastings, but upon Hastings's resignation in 1823 he obtained leave to return home overland. Relying on a scanty stock of Persian acquired during the long and weary passage out, he visited the ruins of Babylon and the court of Teheran, thence journeying to England by way of Baku, Astrakan, Moscow, and St. Petersburg, a rare feat in those days. His published narrative is an interesting volume. He next served as aide-de-camp to the Marquis Wellesley when lord-lieutenant of Ireland; obtained a company in the 62nd foot in 1825, and after studying at the senior department of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, obtained a majority on half-pay unattached, 20 March 1827. He was not on full pay again, but he rose step by step, finally attaining the honorary rank of full general (on half-pay of his former commission), 7 Feb. 1874. In 1829 he paid a visit to the seat of war between the Russians and Turks, was with the English fleet in Turkish waters, visited Constantinople and Adrianople, and crossed the Balkans. In 1832 he was returned, in the whig interest, for East Norfolk, in the first reformed parliament, and sat until 1835. In 1846 he became one of the private secretaries to Lord John Russell, the new premier, and in 1847 was returned for Lymington, for which he sat until 1849, the year of his father's death. On the death of his brother, Augustus Frederick, the fifth earl, 15 March 1851, he succeeded to the title. He was appointed a trustee of Westminster School in 1854, in succession to the (first) Marquis of Anglesey, and was long the ‘father of the trust.’ Few men have been longer known or more generally popular in London society. He retained his faculties to the end of his life, during the latter part of which he held receptions on each anniversary of Waterloo, at his daughter's house in Portman Square (see Broad Arrow, 28 Feb. 1891, p. 278, and 13 June 1891, p. 749).
Albemarle died at his London residence in Portman Square, 21 Feb. 1891, in his ninety-second year, and was buried at Quiddenham, Norfolk. He married in 1831 Susan, third daughter of Sir Coutts Trotter, bart., and by her had a son, the present earl, best known as Viscount Bury, who in 1876 was summoned to the upper house under the family title of Lord Ashford., and four daughters, two of whom predeceased their parents. Lady Albemarle died in 1885.
Albemarle was author of: 1. ‘Personal Narrative of a Journey from India to England …,’ London, 1825, 2 vols. A third edition of this work appeared as ‘Travels in Babylonia, Media, Assyria, and Scythia,’ London, 1827. 2. ‘Narrative of a Journey across the Balkans … and a Visit to … newly discovered Ruins in Asia Minor,’ London, 1830. A volume of extracts from the narrative, with added letters, appeared in Dublin in 1831. 3. ‘Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham and his Contemporaries,’ London, 1852, 2 vols. 4. ‘Fifty Years of my Life,’ London, 1876. A third and revised edition appeared in London, 1877. Some of Albemarle's speeches in the House of Lords, as on the Marriage Bill in 1856 and on ‘Torture in the Madras Presidency’ in the same year, were printed in pamphlet form.
[Doyle's Official Baronage, vol. i.; Foster's Peerage; Albemarle's Fifty Years of my Life (rev. ed.), and other works; Parl. Debates under dates; Times, February 1891.]
KEPPEL, WILLIAM ANNE, second Earl of Albemarle (1702–1754), lieutenant-general, colonel Coldstream guards, son of Arnold Joost van Keppel, first earl [q. v.], and his wife Geertruid Johanna Quirina van der Duyn, was born at Whitehall on 5 June 1702; was baptised at the Chapel Royal, Queen Anne being his godmother; was educated in Holland; and on his return to England (as Viscount Bury) was appointed, 25 Aug. 1717, captain and lieutenant-colonel of the grenadier company of the Coldstream guards. In 1718 he succeeded to his father's title and estates, and in 1722, at his family seat in Guelderland, entertained the Bishop of Münster. In 1725 he was made K.B., in 1727 aide-de-camp to the king; and on 22 Nov. 1731 was appointed to the colonelcy of the 29th foot, then at Gibraltar, which he held until 7 May 1733, when he was appointed colonel of the third troop of horse-guards. He was made governor of Virginia in 1737, a brigadier-general July 1739, major-general February 1742, and was transferred to the colonelcy of the Coldstream guards in October 1744. He went to Flanders with Lord Stair in 1742, and was a general on the staff at Dettingen, where he had a horse shot under him, and at Fontenoy, where he was wounded. He commanded the first line of Cumberland's army at Culloden, and was again on the staff in Flanders, and present at the battle of Val. At the peace of 1748
