LANSDOWNE, HENRY PETTY-FITZMALTRICE, third Marquis of (1780-1863). An English states. man. He was born at Lansdowne House, Lon don. and was a younger son of Earl Shelburne, Premier of George ITT.. who received the coronet of a marquis in 1784. Lord Henry Petty was sent to Westminster School. and afterwards to Edinburgh. He took his degree at Trinity Col lege. Cambridge. in 1801, and, when barely of age. entered Parliament as member for Caine. The turned his attention to finance. and on Pitt's death became, at the age of twenty-five, Chancel lor of the Exchequer, in the Administration of Lord Grenville. In 1809 he succeeded his half brother in the marquisate, became one of the heads of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords, and during a long opposition was a consistent advocate of Parliamentary reform, the aboli tion of slavery, Catholic emancipation, and free trade, all of which he lived to see triumphant.
When the Whigs, after their long exclusion from power, came into office with Earl Grey at their head, Lansdowne became Lord President of the Council, which post he held with a brief inter val from November, 1330, to September, 1541, resuming it in 1346, after the fall of the Peel Ministry, and again filling it until 1352. Ile then formally bade farewell to office, and re signed the leadership of the House of Lords, hut consented to hold a scat without office in the Aberdeen Cabinet, and again in the first Ad ministration of Lord Palmerston. After the death of the Duke of Wellington he became the patriarch of the Upper Douse and the per sonal friend and adviser of the Queen. He had a keen regard and a cultivated taste for litera ture, and was a generous patron of men of letters.