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Garret Wellesley, 7th Earl Cowley (30 July 1934 – 17 June 2016) was an English-American banker.

Early life

Wellesley was born in Nevada on 30 July 1934. He was the son of actor Arthur Wellesley, 4th Earl Cowley (1890-1962), and his second wife, Mary Elsie Himes (1906-2003). Before his birth, his father had sold Draycot House and the Draycot Estate in 1920, at which time it encompassed 4,320 acres. His parents met while his mother "was working as a hat check girl at a road house near Reno" and was divorced from Joseph T. Himes of San Francisco three weeks before their wedding. In 1935, a forest fire raging over the foothills of the Sierra Nevada threatened his parents' ranch, known as Wellesley Ranch, in Lakeview, about five miles north of Carson City, Nevada.

From his father's first marriage to actress Mae Picard, he had an elder half-brother, Denis Wellesley, 5th Earl Cowley, who succeeded to their father's titles upon his death in 1962. His paternal grandparents were Henry Wellesley, 3rd Earl Cowley and his first wife, Lady Violet Nevill (daughter of William Nevill, 1st Marquess of Abergavenny).

He graduated from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in 1957 and received an MBA at Harvard Business School in 1962.

Career

After USC, Wellesley spent three years in the Counterintelligence Corps of the U.S. Army. After obtaining his MBA, he began a career in finance and banking, working as an investment analyst with Wells Fargo between 1962 and 1964, an investment counsellor with Dodge & Cox from 1964 to 1966, vice-president and investment counsellor with Thorndike, Doran, Paine & Lewis from 1967 to 1969 and a senior vice-president with Shareholders Capital Corporation between 1969 and 1974.

In 1975, he unexpectedly succeeded to his title after his nephew, Richard, died aged just 29. He continued to work in finance as group vice-president with Bank of America in London, between 1978 and 1985 and then as independent financial advisor between until 1990 before becoming an investment partner with Thomas R. Miller & Son in Bermuda. He also took his seat in the House of Lords.

Personal life

Lord Cowley was married four times. His first marriage was on 16 September 1960 to Elizabeth Suzanne Lennon, a daughter of Haynes Lennon of South Carolina. Before their divorce in 1966, they were the parents of two children:

• Lady Elizabeth Tara Lennon Wellesley (b. 1962), an artist.
• Garret Graham Wellesley, 8th Earl Cowley (b. 1965), who co-founded the peer-to-peer lending firm Wellesley & Co.; he married Claire L. Brighton, only daughter of Peter W Brighton of Stowbridge, in 1990.

He was married to Isabelle O'Bready of Sherbrooke, Quebec from 1968 to 1981 and to Paige Deming, a daughter of Joseph Grove Deming of Reno, Nevada from 1981, with whom he adopted "several daughters."

• Lady Sarah Paige Wellesley, who married Frank Mosier, eldest son of Frank Mosier of Saratoga, New York.

After the death of his third wife in 2008, Lord Cowley married Carola Marion Stormonth (née Erskine-Hill) Darling (b. 1943) on 15 February 2012. The widow of Capt. Robin Andrew Stormonth Darling, Carola was the eldest daughter of Sir Robert Erskine-Hill, 2nd Baronet and the former Christine Alison Johnstone (only daughter of Capt. Henry James Johnstone). From her first marriage to Sir Richard Brooke, 11th Baronet, which ended in divorce, she is the mother of Sir Richard Brooke, 12th Baronet.

Lord Cowley died on Friday, 17 June 2016 after a short illness. His funeral was held in London and he was succeeded in the title by his son, Graham.

References

1. "Son to the C. A. Wellesleys". The New York Times. 1 August 1934. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
2. "THE EARL COWLEY WEDS; Reno Divorce Followed by His Marriage to Mrs. Mary Himes". The New York Times. 19 June 1933. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
3. "EARL'S RANCH MENACED.; But Wind Veers Forest Fire From Cowley's Nevada Home". The New York Times. 28 July 1935. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
4. "VISCOUNT DANGAN WEDS A SHOW GIRL; Peer Marries Miss Picard, Who Was with Him in the Cast of a Musical Comedy". The New York Times. 26 February 1914. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
5. "COUNTESS COWLEY; First Wife of Earl Had Been an Actress Here for Many Years". The New York Times. 6 June 1946. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
6. ^ Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003, volume 1, page 937.
7. Walford, Edward (1860). The county families of the United Kingdom; or, Royal manual of the titled and untitled aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Dalcassian Publishing Company. p. 313. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
8. ^ "Garret Wellesley, 7th Earl Cowley". The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald. 15 July 2016. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
9. Kirk, Tristan (29 November 2018). "Earl's daughter fights family for bigger slice of his £1.3m fortune". Evening Standard. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
10. Peter W. Hammond, editor, The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times, Volume XIV: Addenda & Corrigenda (Stroud, Gloucestershire, U.K.: Sutton Publishing, 1998), page 214

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl Cowley

• 1934 births
• 2016 deaths
• University of Southern California alumni
• Harvard Business School alumni
• Wellesley family
• Earls in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
• Hereditary peers removed under the House of Lords Act 1999