John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute, KT, FRS (10 August 1793 – 18 March 1848), styled Lord Mount Stuart between 1794 and 1814, was a wealthy Scottish aristocrat and industrialist in Georgian and early Victorian Britain. He developed the coal and iron industries across South Wales and built the Cardiff Docks.
Bute's father, John, Lord Mount Stuart, died a few months after he was born and as a young child he was brought up first by his mother, the former Lady Elizabeth McDouall-Crichton, and later by his paternal grandfather, John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute. He travelled widely across Europe before attending Cambridge University. He contracted an eye condition and remained partially sighted for the rest of his life.
Having inherited large estates across Britain, he married his first wife, Lady Maria North, in 1818, and together they lived a relatively secluded life in Mount Stuart House in Scotland, one of Bute's four seats. Bute was dour but industrious, with a flair for land management. He focused his daily routine around extensive correspondence with his estate managers, making biennial tours of his lands around the country. The couple did not conceive any children, and Maria died in 1841. Bute remarried four years later, to Lady Sophia Rawdon-Hastings, and she gave birth to Bute's only child, John, in 1847.
Bute was a member of the House of Lords and controlled the votes of several members of the House of Commons. He was a political and religious conservative, a follower of the Duke of Wellington, but rarely took part in national debates unless his own commercial interests were involved. Early on, Bute realised the vast wealth that lay in the South Wales coalfields and set about commercially exploiting them through local ironmasters and colliers.
He constructed the Cardiff Docks, a major project which, despite running heavily over budget, enabled further exports of iron and coal and magnified the value of his lands in Glamorganshire. When violence broke out in the Merthyr Rising of 1831, Bute led the government response from Cardiff Castle, despatching military forces, deploying spies and keeping Whitehall informed throughout. The contemporary press praised the marquess as "the creator of modern Cardiff", and on his death he left vast wealth to his son.
Background and personal life Bute was the son of John, Lord Mount Stuart, and the former Lady Elizabeth McDouall-Crichton. His parents were both from wealthy, aristocratic backgrounds; his father was due to become the Marquess of Bute, with extensive landholdings in Scotland and in South Wales, and his mother was the sole heir to the Crichton estates, with over of land in Scotland. Bute's father died in a riding accident in February 1794, leaving Elizabeth to give birth to Bute's younger brother, Patrick Stuart, later that year.
Initially Bute was brought up at Dumfries House by his mother and grandmother, but following their deaths he passed into the care of his grandfather, the 1st Marquess of Bute, and travelled with him across England and Europe. His family considered him to be clever and he went to study at Christ's College in Cambridge in 1809. Over the next few years he visited the Mediterranean, Scandinavia and Russia, taking a keen interest in land economics. He developed an eye condition during this period and became partially blind, leaving him unable to travel without assistance or to tolerate bright lights, and finding it difficult to read or write.
His maternal grandfather, Lord Dumfries, died in 1803, followed by his paternal grandfather in 1814, with Bute inheriting both sets of estates and adding Crichton to his surname after Lord Dumfries. As a consequence he held many hereditary titles and posts: in addition to being the Marquess of Bute, he was also the Earl of Windsor, Viscount Mountjoy, Baron Mount Stuart, Baron Cardiff, the Earl of Dumfries and Bute, the Viscount of Ayr and Kingarth, Baron Crichton, Lord Crichton of Sanquhar and Cumnock, and Lord Mount Stuart Cumra and Inchmarnock, and a Baronet of Nova Scotia. He was the Keeper of Rothsay Castle, the Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of Glamorgan, the Lord Lieutenant, the hereditary Sheriff and Coroner of Buteshire, and the High Steward of Banbury.;
Bute had four major seats, Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute, Dumfries House in Ayrshire, Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire, and Cardiff Castle in South Wales, with his London townhouse, Bute House, on Campden Hill in Kensington. Bute preferred to live in Mount Stuart House; he disliked London and only spent a few weeks in Cardiff Castle each year. Twice each year he would travel from Mount Stuart House through Ayrshire to Edinburgh, down through northern England to London, and on to Cardiff and his South Wales estates.
Concerned about his growing blindness, and not enjoying the social life in London, Bute retired to his estates on the Isle of Bute for the next six years. While recovering, Bute married his first wife, Lady Maria North, in 1818. Maria was one of the three daughters of the 3rd Earl of Guilford, and a wealthy heiress. £40,000 was settled on her at the time of her marriage and she was due to inherit a third of her father's extensive estates. Contemporaries considered Maria a kind and pleasant woman, but she was often unwell and the marriage proved childless. In 1820 his portrait was painted by Henry Raeburn, and published two years later as an engraving by William Ward.; In 1827 his father-in-law died and Maria inherited lands worth over £110,000.
The historian John Davies describes Bute as "dour, remote and overbearing on first acquaintance" but with a "sense of responsibility, considerable imagination and an enormous capacity for hard work". By the aristocratic standards of the day, Bute lived a reclusive lifestyle. As a result of his personality and poor eyesight, he did not enjoy hunting, shooting, or large social gatherings, nor did he like racehorses or gambling. His first wife's illnesses added to this sense of exclusion from wider aristocratic society. Compared to other landowners of the period, Bute was relatively philanthropic, giving away around seven to eight percent of his rental income from South Wales in charitable donations, for example. He was keen to fund local schools and to construct new churches, partially because in doing so he was able to discourage any moves towards Nonconformism and the disestablishment of the official Church.
In 1841 Lady Maria died, and Bute blamed his excessive focus on the dock programme for exacerbating his wife's illness. As a result of the original marriage agreement, Bute continued to draw the incomes from his late wife's property for the remainder of his life, even though officially the estates would ultimately pass to Maria's sister, Lady Susan, on his own death. In November 1843, a fire swept through Luton Hoo House, destroying the interior; the house's historic library survived, however, and most of its famous collection of paintings were rescued from the blaze; it was subsequently sold off by Bute. From 1843, the London house was let out: first to the Lascelles family until 1856, then to the Duke of Rutland until 1888. Bute House was later acquired by Charles Weld-Blundell, who renamed it Blundell House: it was demolished 1912–1913.
Bute was created a Knight of the Thistle in 1843 by Queen Victoria. In 1845 Bute fell from his horse and injured his eyes further in the accident, making it still harder for him to read and write. Bute remarried the same year, this time to Lady Sophia Rawdon-Hastings, the daughter of the Marquess of Hastings. Sophia was obsessive, hard to please and did not get on well with John's family, especially his brother. She soon became pregnant, but gave birth to a stillborn child; the couple's second child, whom they named John, was successfully born in 1847.
Bute's relationship with his brother Patrick was often difficult. Their political views did not coincide, as Patrick was much more liberal than Bute and favoured political reform. Although Bute arranged for Patrick to become a Member of Parliament in 1818, in 1831 their differing views resulted in Bute removing him from Parliament. For many years, Patrick had good reason to expect that Bute would die childless, leaving him to inherit the family estates; after Bute's death, he disputed the occupancy of Cardiff Castle with Lady Sophia.
Landowner and industrialist
Estate management
Bute was determined to develop his different estates and receive the best possible return from them. He was an active, ambitious manager, quick to generate new ideas for the properties, and spent the majority of his time managing his properties . Despite his poor eyesight, he wrote at least six letters to his managers each day. He had a detailed understanding of his various estates and businesses; he attempted to keep up with affairs in Glamorgan, for example, by reading the local Welsh newspapers from his house in Scotland and through exchanging letters with influential local figures. Bute recognised that his land holdings were too extended and disparate to be easily managed and attempted to rationalise them. He attempted to sell his Luton estates in the early 1820s but failed to obtain an adequate price; he successfully sold them in the early 1840s. Luton and Luton Hoo was finally sold in 1845, by then comprising around .;
Unusually for an aristocrat of the period, Bute owned almost all of his lands fully, as an owner in fee simple, rather than having his rights diluted through arrangements with trustees. When he married in 1818, Bute placed his English and Wales estates into a trustee arrangement for any future children, but this agreement expired with Lady Maria's death in 1842; when he remarried in 1845 a similar trustee agreement was set up, although in this version the Glamorgan estates were administered separately from his other holdings in England and Wales. Bute continued to run his network of estates and estate managers personally, helped by Onesipherus Bruce, a barrister-agent and close friend.
As early as 1815, Bute had his Glamorgan estates fully surveyed, which highlighted that the estates had been neglected for many years and were now in a poor condition. Edward Richards became the senior official in charge of the estates by 1824 and represented Bute on both estate and political affairs across the region. Despite this, Bute retained the final authority over even quite minor issues on the estates, including making decisions on the buttons to be used on local school uniforms or the reuse of a broken flag pole, for example, which could result in considerable delays as letters were sent between South Wales and Scotland. As the complexity of the Glamorgan estates grew, more officials were appointed to help manage the docks, farms and mineral interests, but these all reported separately to Bute, putting increasing pressure on the marquess.
On the Isle of Bute, the marquess expanded his properties, purchasing land in Ascog, Kilmahalmag and Etterick Mill.
Glamorganshire
Bute was closely involved in the developments across Glamorganshire during the first half of the 19th century. The region saw tremendous economic and social changes in a short period. The population almost trebled in the first forty years of the century and industrial outputs soared, with the output of pig iron increasing from 34,000 to 277,000 tons between 1796 and 1830.; Industry and mining replaced agriculture as the main sources of work. In driving forward and responding to these changes, Bute transformed his South Wales estate into a major industrial enterprise.