Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland

Elizabeth Sutherland Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland and 19th Countess of Sutherland (24 May 1765–29 January 1839) was a Scottish peeress, best remembered for her involvement in the Highland Clearances.

Elizabeth was the only child of the 18th Earl of Sutherland and his wife, Mary and she succeeded to her father's titles in 1766, a few weeks after her first birthday, becoming Countess of Sutherland.

Involvement in the Highland Clearances

Elizabeth and her factor, Patrick Sellar, had a reputation for being especially cruel in the Highland Clearances and their names are reviled in Sutherland to this day. Donald McLeod, a Sutherland crofter, later wrote about the events he witnessed:

unicode|   "The consternation and confusion were extreme. Little or no time was given for the removal of persons or property; the people striving to remove the sick and the helpless before the fire should reach them; next, struggling to save the most valuable of their effects. The cries of the women and children, the roaring of the affrighted cattle, hunted at the same time by the yelling dogs of the shepherds amid the smoke and fire, altogether presented a scene that completely baffles description — it required to be seen to be believed.

unicode|   A dense cloud of smoke enveloped the whole country by day, and even extended far out to sea. At night an awfully grand but terrific scene presented itself — all the houses in an extensive district in flames at once. I myself ascended a height about eleven o'clock in the evening, and counted two hundred and fifty blazing houses, many of the owners of which I personally knew, but whose present condition — whether in or out of the flames — I could not tell. The conflagration lasted six days, till the whole of the dwellings were reduced to ashes or smoking ruins. During one of these days a boat actually lost her way in the dense smoke as she approached the shore, but at night was enabled to reach a landing-place by the lurid light of the flames." [ [http://www.electricscotland.com/history/hclearances.htm "Highland Clearances" by Janet Mackay] ]

Accounts like those of McLeod and General David Stewart of Garth brought widespread condemnation and The Highland Land League eventually achieved land reform in the enactment of Crofting Acts, but these could not bring economic viability and came too late at a time when the land was already suffering from depopulation.

Title and family

On 4 September 1785, she married Lord George Leveson-Gower and they had four surviving children:

*George Granville Leveson-Gower, later Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, styled Earl Gower, later styled Marquess of Stafford, later 2nd Duke of Sutherland (1786–1861)
*The Lady Charlotte Sophia Leveson-Gower (c. 1788–1870), married Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 13th Duke of Norfolk and had issue.
*The Lady Elizabeth Mary Leveson-Gower (1797–1891), married Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster and had issue.
*The Lord Francis Leveson-Gower, later Egerton, later 1st Earl of Ellesmere (1800–1857)

Shortly before his death in 1833, her husband was created Duke of Sutherland and Elizabeth became a duchess. On her own death six years later, her comital title passed to her eldest son, George.

References

External links

* [http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/03/12.htm "The Duchess of Sutherland and Slavery" (Karl Marx, 1853)]