Marischal College, Aberdeen, and hereditary constable of Inverness Castle. He was a liberal landlord, a zealous agriculturist, and improved the breed of Southdowns. In 1832 he was chosen vice-president of the Smithfield Club, which founded the Royal Agricultural Society in 1837; in 1845 he was elected president of the society, in succession to the fifth Earl Spencer [q. v.], and held that office until his death. He was an owner of racehorses from 1818 to 1854, and twice won the Oaks, with Gulnare in 1827, and Refraction in 1845. In 1831 he was a steward of the Jockey Club, and helped to revise the rules. His exertions, aided by those of Lord George Bentinck [see Bentinck, William George Frederic Cavendish], maintained the importance and success of the annual race-meeting at Goodwood.
Richmond married, on 10 April 1817, Lady Caroline Paget, eldest daughter of the first Marquis of Anglesey, and by her, who died on 12 March 1874, had ten children, of whom the eldest, Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, born on 27 Feb. 1818, is the sixth and present duke. His second daughter, Lady Augusta Caroline Gordon-Lennox (born in 1827), was married in 1851 to General his Serene Highness Prince William Augustus Edward of Saxe-Weimar, G.C.B., eldest son of Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach. His second son, Lord Fitzroy George Gordon-Lennox, was lost in the steamer President in 1841.
The third son, Lord Henry Charles George Gordon-Lennox (1821–1886), was conservative member for Chichester from 1846 to 1885, a lord of the treasury in 1852, and again in 1858–9, secretary to the admiralty from July 1866 to December 1868, and first commissioner of public works under Mr. Disraeli from February 1874, when he was sworn of the privy council. In July 1876 he resigned his office, owing to certain disclosures in the case of Twycross v. Grant concerning the Lisbon Tramways Company, of which he was a director. He was entirely innocent of any dishonourable practices. Lord Henry died 29 Aug. 1886.
[Memoir of Charles Gordon-Lennox, fifth Duke of Richmond, K.G., 1862, an anonymous and vapid eulogy by Lord William Pitt Lennox [q. v.]; J. Baxter's Library of Agricultural Knowledge, vol. i. 1846; Gent. Mag. 1860, pt. ii. p. 669.]
LENNOX, CHARLOTTE (1720–1804), miscellaneous writer, born in 1720, was the daughter of Colonel James Ramsay, lieutenant-governor of New York. About 1735 she was sent to England for adoption by a well-to-do aunt, whom on her arrival she found to be incurably insane. Her father died soon afterwards, leaving her unprovided for. After failing as an actress (Walpole, Letters, ed. Cunningham, ii. 126), she supported herself by literary work, and about 1748 married a Mr. Lennox. Samuel Paterson, who published her first book, introduced her to Johnson, and Johnson introduced her to Richardson. Johnson, in his admiration for her blameless life, thought extravagantly of her talents. To celebrate the publication, in December 1750, of her novel, ‘Harriot Stuart,’ he invited her to supper at his club. One of the dishes was an enormous apple-pie, which he had stuck with bay-leaves, and he had prepared for her a crown of laurel, with which he encircled her brows (Hawkins, Life of Johnson, p. 286). He further flattered her by citing her under ‘Talent’ in his ‘Dictionary’ (Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill, iv. 4 n. 3). These compliments turned her head, with the result that ‘nobody liked her’ (Mrs. Thrale, in D'Arblay's Diary, i. 91).
But her brightly written novel entitled ‘The Female Quixote; or, the Adventures of Arabella,’ 2 vols. 12mo, London, 1752 (1783, 1810), which appeared without her name, entitles her to rank as a woman of genius. Fielding praised it (Voyage to Lisbon), and Johnson, who contributed the dedication to the Earl of Middlesex, reviewed it in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (xxii. 146). Her next publication was a somewhat silly book, called ‘Shakespear illustrated; or, the Novels and Histories on which the Plays … are founded, collected, and translated,’ 3 vols. 12mo, London, 1753–4. In her notes she attempts to show that Shakespeare injured the stories by the introduction of absurd intrigues and improbable incidents. Some of these observations were ascribed by Malone to Johnson, who wrote the dedication to the Earl of Orrery. During 1760–1 she conducted a magazine called ‘The Ladies' Museum,’ 2 vols. 8vo. A well-written comedy by Mrs. Lennox, entitled ‘The Sister,’ was produced at Covent Garden on 18 Feb. 1769, Goldsmith providing the epilogue (Genest, Hist. of the Stage, v. 241–2). A party was organised to hoot it down the first night, and it was never repeated (Boswell, iv. 10; Gent. Mag. xxxix. 199). Three of the characters in Burgoyne's ‘Heiress’ were stolen from it. A German translation by J. C. Bock was printed in vol. i. of F. L. Schroeder's ‘Hamburgisches Theater,’ 1776. Her latter days were clouded by penury and sickness, and during the last twelvemonth of her life she was a pensioner on the Royal Literary Fund. George Rose and William Beloe also assisted her. She died on 4 Jan. 1804. By
