Temple, John Alexander 1925. The Temple Memoirs. London: Witherby.

The Temple Memoirs. An account of this Historic Family and its Demenses; with Biographical Sketches. Anecdotes & Legends from Saxon Times to the present day… by Colonel John Alexander Temple, author of “Annals of Two Extinct Families,” “Woolstone, a Cotswold Hamlet,” assisted by Harald Markham Temple. Limited to 250 copies.

The Third Duke

[The second Duke] died at the Great Western Hotel, Paddington, 29th July, 1861, leaving an only son who became third Duke. This son, Richard Plantagenet-Campbell-Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos, was born 1823, educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and D.C.L., was member for Buckingham from 1846 to 1857. In Lord Derby's administration (1867) he was a Junior Lord of the Treasury. In 1853 he became Chairman of the London and North-Western Railway, and in that post displayed business qualities of a high order, but resigned it in 1861 when he succeeded his father as third Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. He became Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Great Exhibition of 1862, and in 1886 was Lord-President of the Council, and from 1867 to 1868 Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord Derby's second administration. In 1875 he was appointed by Mr. Disraeli Governor of Madras, and held that post till 1880. During this period he had to grapple with the terrible famine of 1876 and 1877, being assisted at its commencement by the services of Sir Richard Temple, before joining his appointment of Governor of Bombay, with whom he worked in perfect harmony, and to the satisfaction of the Government of India and Lord Lytton the Viceroy. In 1876 he received the Grand Cross of the Star of India and the C.I.E.

Sir Charles Lawson, in his “Memories of Madras” (p. 50), writes of him:

Essentially strenuous, unassuming and benevolent, that lamented satrap seemed to be ever animated by a lofty sense of personal responsibility. No climatic or other inconveniences, no sense of the incongruity between his surroundings in India and those which he had left behind in England, deterred him from discharging in a genial and thorough manner what he honestly regarded as his duty. No one of such illustrious ancestry and exalted rank as his had ever before held office in India, a fact that appealed strongly to the imagination of Indians, who have an instinctive reverence for good birth, while he was seen on all sides to be a man of generous impulses arid simple tastes, who took an inexhaustible interest in everything and everybody around him. He reigned; and there was no mistake about his governing.

In short, he lived up to the motto conferred by Queen Victoria upon the Exalted Order of the Star of India, which he received from Her Majesty, of ‘Heaven's light our Guide.’

In 1868 he had established before the House of Lords his right to the Barony of Kinloss, which had been in abeyance. In 1886, after his return from India, he became Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords. Unlike his immediate predecessors he was a man of somewhat frugal disposition and simple tastes, and by economizing was able to settle the majority of the debts that had been left by his father, and to recover many of the family possessions and treasures that had been scattered at the great sale of 1848. His disposition was studious and his attainments in science and history were considerable. In politics he was throughout his life a staunch Conservative, thus departing from the traditions of his family, who were pre-eminently Whigs.

He married (1), 1851, Caroline, daughter of Robert Harvey of Langley Park, Bucks, and by her had three daughters: Mary, born 1852; Anne, born 1853; Caroline Jemina, born 1856. His first wife died in 1874, and in 1885 he married (2) Alice Anna, daughter of Sir Graham Montgomery, Baronet. By her he had no issue and she survived him. He died 26th March, 1889, and was buried at Wotton. He left personalty eighty thousand pounds besides his estates. His titles became extinct, with the exception of the Earldom of Temple, which devolved on Stephen Gore Langton, the son of his deceased sister, Lady Anna, and the Barony of Kinloss, which passed, with his estates, to his eldest daughter, Mary. She had married in 1885 Captain Luis F. H. C. Morgan of Biddlesden Park, Co. Bucks (who assumed by Royal Licence the additional name of Grenville, but died 26th August, 1896), leaving issue:

(1) Richard George Grenville, born 1887. (Killed during the Great War.)

(2) Luis Chandos Francis Temple, born 1889. Now Master of Kinloss and in Holy Orders.

(3) Thomas George Breadalbane, born 1891. Rifle Brigade, D.S.O.

(4) Robert William, born 1892.

(5) Harry Nugent, born 1896.

Caroline Mary, born 1886. Married, 1909, Thomas Close Smith of Boycott Manor, and has issue.