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George Byng, 8th Viscount Torrington

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Arms of Byng: Quarterly sable and argent in the first quarter a lion rampant of the second

George Stanley Byng, 8th Viscount Torrington (29 April 1841 – 20 October 1889), known as George Byng until 1884, was a British Conservative politician.

Origins

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He was the son of Major the Hon. Robert Barlow Palmer Byng (third son of George Byng, 6th Viscount Torrington), by his wife Elizabeth Maria Gwatkin, a daughter of Major-General Edward Gwatkin, a son of Robert Lovell Gwatkin.[1]

Career

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In 1884 he succeeded his uncle George Byng, 7th Viscount Torrington (1812-1884) in the viscountcy. In 1888 his uncle's companion, Andalusia Molesworth died. She left her fortune to Byng as she was estranged from her ex-husband's family.[2]

Byng served briefly as a Lord-in-waiting (government whip in the House of Lords) from March to October 1889 in the Conservative administration of Lord Salisbury.

Marriages and children

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He married twice:

  • Firstly in 1882 to Alice Arabella (d. 1883), a daughter of James Jameson.
  • Secondly in 1885 to Emmeline Seymour (d. June 1912), a daughter of Rev. Henry Seymour,[3] by whom he had children including:

Death and succession

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He died in office in October 1889, aged 48, and was succeeded in the viscountcy by his son from his second marriage, George Master Byng, 9th Viscount Torrington (1886–1944).

Notes

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  1. ^ Colby, Frederic Thomas (1884). "Pedigrees of five Devonshire families, Colby, Coplestone, Reynolds, Palmer and Johnson [microform]". Internet Archive. Exeter: Exeter : Printed for private circulation by W. Pollard. pp. 22–3. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  2. ^ "Molesworth [née Carstairs; other married name West], Andalusia Grant, Lady Molesworth (c. 1809–1888), society hostess | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/47908. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ Maureen E. Montgomery (2013). 'Gilded Prostitution': Status, Money and Transatlantic Marriages, 1870-1914. Routledge. p. 264. ISBN 978-1-136-21495-0.

References

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Peerage of Great Britain
Preceded by Viscount Torrington
1884–1889
Succeeded by
George Master Byng