Grosvenor
also le Grosvenor
Dukes of Westminster, the wealthiest landowners in Britain.
- Origin
- North West, England
- Motto
- Nobilitatis virtus non stemma character
- Famous bearer
- Sir Thomas Grosvenor, 3rd Baronet (1655-1700), through whose marriage the family acquired the Manor of Ebury (modern Mayfair and Belgravia)
- Register
- English family
Ranked of all time
The 15 Most Powerful English Houses of All Time
The seat of Grosvenor
Seat vacantChief
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Current mission
No shared goal set yet. Once Grosvenor has leadership, it sets the public focus: a restoration, a gathering, a real-world project that helps its own.
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Help rebuild the Grosvenor clan →Motto
Nobilitatis virtus non stemma character
“Virtue, not pedigree, is the mark of nobility”
What does the Grosvenor name mean?
Norman territorial surname meaning 'the great huntsman' (from Old French 'gros veneur'), originally the title of the master huntsman to a great Norman lord. The English Grosvenor family traces its descent to Gilbert le Grosvenor, who came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066 and settled in Cheshire. The senior line has held its core Cheshire estates continuously since the 11th century.
The history of Grosvenor
The Grosvenors held their core Cheshire estates from the 11th century, settling at Eaton near Chester and at Lostock and Hulme. The family rose to national prominence through the 1677 marriage of Sir Thomas Grosvenor, 3rd Baronet, to Mary Davies, the twelve-year-old heiress of the Manor of Ebury, a 500-acre tract of marsh and meadow west of London. Within a century the Ebury estate had been developed into Mayfair, Belgravia, Pimlico and parts of what is now Knightsbridge, becoming the most valuable urban property holding in the world.
The Grosvenor family was created Earls Grosvenor in 1784 and Marquesses of Westminster in 1831. The 3rd Marquess, Hugh Lupus Grosvenor (1825-1899), was created 1st Duke of Westminster in 1874 by Disraeli, the last person outside the immediate royal family to be elevated to a non-royal dukedom in British history. By the late Victorian period the family's London estate had grown into the single most valuable urban real-estate holding in Britain, the rents from Mayfair and Belgravia alone making the family among the wealthiest dynasties of the imperial age.
The 6th Duke (Gerald Grosvenor, 1951-2016) modernised the Grosvenor Estate into a diversified international property and asset management group operating across Britain, North America, continental Europe and Asia. His son Hugh Grosvenor succeeded as 7th Duke in August 2016 at the age of 25, inheriting an estate valued in the tens of billions of pounds.
The current Duke holds the family seat at Eaton Hall in Cheshire, the Grosvenor Estate properties in London (still around 300 acres of Mayfair and Belgravia), and global holdings under Grosvenor Group. The Grosvenor family is consistently among the wealthiest non-royal families in Britain by every modern measure, and the Westminster dukedom remains the last non-royal dukedom created outside the British royal family itself.
Notable bearers of the Grosvenor name
- Sir Thomas Grosvenor, 3rd Baronet (1655-1700), through whose marriage the family acquired the Manor of Ebury (modern Mayfair and Belgravia)
- Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster (1825-1899), first Duke and developer of central London
- Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster (1951-2016), Territorial Army major-general and philanthropist
- Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster (b.1991), current head of the Grosvenor line