William Pleydell-Bouverie, 9th Earl of Radnor

William Pleydell-Bouverie, 9th Earl of Radnor (born 5 January 1955), of Longford Castle, Wiltshire, is an English peer and landowner.

Longford Castle

The son of Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 8th Earl of Radnor, by his marriage to Anne Garden Seth-Smith, daughter of Donald Farquharson Seth-Smith,[1] whose great-grandfather was property developer Seth Smith, who built large proportions of Mayfair and Belgravia in the early 1800s.

Pleydell-Bouverie was educated at Harrow and the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. Until the death of his father, he was known by the courtesy title of Viscount Folkestone.[2]

In 1996 he married Melissa Stanford, daughter of J. K. E. Stanford,[3] formerly Director-General of the Leonard Cheshire Foundation,[4] and a granddaughter of the author J. K. Stanford. They have four sons and two daughters: Lady Hope (born 1997); Jacob, Viscount Folkestone (born 1999); Luke (born 2000); Dan (born 2002);[3] Edward (born 2004); and a daughter born in 2007.[5] The heir apparent is their eldest son, Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, Viscount Folkestone.[2]

The family is related to renowned Dutch designer Jan des Bouvrie, who participated in the Dutch version of the well known BBC programme ‘Who do you think you are’. In the episode, it was discovered that he is a direct descendant of the Bouverie familie, who are, like him, descendent from French Hugenots from Lille. The researchers of the programme tried to contact the current family and even went to the house, but were told quite bluntly, on Dutch national television, that, much to Des Bouvrie’s disappointment, he was not welcome and he was denied an opportunity to meet the current family.