Henry Chetwynd-Talbot, 18th Earl of Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury was the second but eldest surviving son of Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 2nd Earl Talbot, by his marriage to Frances Thomasine, a daughter of Charles Lambart. He was styled Viscount Ingestre from the death of his elder brother in 1826 and succeeded his father as 3rd Earl Talbot in 1849. In 1860, following a long and expensive legal case in the House of Lords, and against the claims of three others (Lord Edmund Howard Talbot, infant son of the 14th Duke of Norfolk by whom he was represented, Princess Dorio Pamphili (daughter of John, 16th Earl) and Major William Talbot (of Castle Talbot, County Wexford, a descendant of William, 4th Earl),[2] he succeeded to the titles and estates (including Alton Towers) of a distant cousin and became 18th Earl of Shrewsbury and 18th Earl of Waterford.[3]

Talbot (as he then was) entered the Royal Navy in 1817. He commanded HMS Philomel at the Battle of Navarino, and was picked by Vice-Admiral Codrington to bring home the despatches announcing the victory.[4] He was soon after promoted to captain. On 9 March 1831, his father, the Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire, commissioned him a lieutenant in the Staffordshire Yeomanry,[5] which he gave up in 1833.[6] On 2 June 1832 his father appointed him lieutenant-colonel of the Staffordshire Militia,[7] which he resigned in early 1846.[8]

He was promoted a rear-admiral in 1854 and a vice-admiral and admiral in 1865.

As Viscount Ingestre, while serving in the House of Commons, he was a leading supporter of the charlatan naval inventor Samuel Alfred Warner.[9]

Ingestre was returned to Parliament as one of two representatives for Hertford in 1830.[10] In May of the following year he was elected for Armagh City, a seat he only held until August 1831,[11] and then represented Dublin City until 1832.[12] In 1832 he was once again returned for Hertford. However, the election was declared void on petition in 1833.[10] He returned to the House of Commons as one of the two representatives for Staffordshire South in 1837, a seat he held until he succeeded his father in the Talbot earldom in 1849.[13] After entering the House of Lords he served under the Earl of Derby as a lord-in-waiting (government whip in the House of Lords) in 1852 and as Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms from 1858 to 1859.[14][15][16] In 1858 he was sworn of the Privy Council.[17]

In 1828, while Lord Ingestre, he married Lady Sarah Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Beresford, 2nd Marquess of Waterford, by his marriage to Sarah Carpenter. They had four sons and four daughters. Their second son, Walter Cecil Carpenter (who assumed that surname by Royal licence in lieu of his patronymic) became an admiral in the Royal Navy and a Member of Parliament, while their third son, Sir Reginald Talbot, became a soldier, politician, and colonial governor.

Their daughter Adelaide Chetwynd-Talbot married Adelbert Brownlow-Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow, in 1868.

Lord Shrewsbury died in June 1868, aged 64, and was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son Charles, Viscount Ingrestre. The Countess of Shrewsbury survived her husband by sixteen years and died in October 1884, aged 76.[3]

• O'Byrne, William Richard (1849). "Chetwynd, Henry John" . A Naval Biographical Dictionary . John Murray – via Wikisource.

• Short biography

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Shrewsbury