Elizabeth Seymour Percy, 1st Duchess of Northumberland

Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, 2nd Baroness Percy (née Seymour; 26 November 1716 – 5 December 1776) was a British peeress.

Elizabeth was the only daughter of the 7th Duke of Somerset and his wife, Frances, a daughter of Henry Thynne. On 16 July 1740, she married Sir Hugh Smithson, Bt and they had two sons, Hugh (1742–1817) and Algernon (1750–1830). On her father's death in 1750, she inherited his barony of Percy and her husband acquired from her father his earldom of Northumberland by special remainder and changed his family name from Smithson to Percy that year. Sir Hugh's illegitimate son James Smithson, otherwise Jacques Louis Macie, born in about 1764 to one of Elizabeth's cousins, bequeathed the fortune which established the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1761, Elizabeth became a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte, a post she held until 1770. She became a duchess in 1766 when her husband was created Duke of Northumberland, and on her death in 1776 her barony and the Earldom of Northumberland passed to her eldest son, Hugh, who inherited his father's dukedom ten years later. He built Brizlee Tower as one of a number of monuments to commemorate her.

Sources

• Burke's Peerage & Gentry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Percy,_2nd_Baroness_Percy

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• 'Elizabeth Seymour1
• 'F, #10480, b. 1716, d. 5 December 1776
• Last Edited=10 Aug 2011
• Consanguinity Index=0.27%
• ' Elizabeth Seymour was born in 1716.2 She was the daughter of Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset and Frances Thynne.1 She married Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland, son of Langdale Smithson, on 16 July 1740. She died on 5 December 1776.
• ' Her married name became Smithson. She gained the title of Baroness Percy.
• 'Children of Elizabeth Seymour and Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland
  • 1.General Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland+ b. 14 Aug 1742, d. 10 Jul 1817
  • 2.Algernon Percy, 1st Earl of Beverley+1 b. 21 Jan 1749/50, d. 21 Oct 1830
• Citations
• 1.[S6] G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume II, page 174. Hereinafter cited as The Complete Peerage.
• 2.[S3409] Caroline Maubois, "re: Penancoet Family," e-mail message to Darryl Roger Lundy, 2 December 2008. Hereinafter cited as "re: Penancoet Family."
• From: http://thepeerage.com/p1048.htm#i10480
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