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Earl of Radnor

British title

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ2991031 ↗
Source-derived summary

Earl of Radnor, of the County of Radnor, is a title which has been created twice. It was first created in the Peerage of England in 1679 for John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes, a notable political figure of the reign of Charles II. The earldom was created for a second time in the Peerage of Great Britain in 1765 for William Bouverie, 2nd Viscount Folkestone.

The Bouverie family descends from William des Bouverie, a prominent London merchant. He was created a baronet of St Catherine Cree Church, London, in the Baronetage of Great Britain in 1714. His eldest son, the second Baronet, represented Shaftesbury in the House of Commons. He was succeeded by his younger brother, the third Baronet. He sat as Member of Parliament for Salisbury until he was raised to the Peerage of Great Britain as Baron Longford and Viscount Folkestone in 1747.

His son, the second Viscount, also represented Salisbury in Parliament. In 1765 he was made Baron Pleydell-Bouverie, of Coleshill in the County of Berkshire, and Earl of Radnor. The earldom was created with remainder, failing heirs male of his body, to the heirs male of his father.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Earl of Radnor” as british title. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Earl, Radnor and British.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1679, 1765, 1714, 1747—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Earl, Radnor and British providing the first useful test.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Earl of Radnor”, the useful work is to connect “british title” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2991031. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1679, 1765, 1714 and 1747.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Earl of Radnor” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.