The first Duke of Sutherland: richer than royalty?

High above Golspie stands one of the North Highlands’ most controversial landmarks. The figure of George Granville Leveson-Gower and its pedestal rise more than 100 feet above Ben Bhraggie, although locally the monument is known, not always affectionately, as the Mannie. I introduce him there, but his fuller story usually waits until we enter Dunrobin Castle and stand before his portrait. He was not the most attractive man ever committed to canvas, but when you were among the wealthiest people in Europe, perhaps that mattered rather less.

Leveson-Gower married Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland in her own right, combining her enormous Highland inheritance with his family’s English estates, industries and investments. Further inheritances brought him the profitable Bridgewater Canal and coal interests, while support for government borrowing during Britain’s wars with France strengthened his fortune and relationship with the state. His industrial wealth, political influence and vast estates placed him among Europe’s richest private individuals.

His reputation in the North Highlands is dominated by the Sutherland Clearances, but responsibility cannot honestly be placed upon one person alone. The land belonged to Elizabeth, and the programme carried her authority and determination, while James Loch designed much of the wider estate policy and men such as William Young and Patrick Sellar implemented it. Her husband financed and supported that transformation, so he cannot be separated from its consequences, but presenting him as the solitary architect allows several other responsible figures to disappear conveniently into the background.

In 1832, he supported parliamentary reform despite losing influence over seats controlled by his family. King William IV rewarded that loyalty by creating him Duke of Sutherland, placing his descendants at the summit of the non-royal aristocracy. He enjoyed the title for only six months before dying at Dunrobin in 1833. The Mannie commemorates a man whose wealth transformed Sutherland and whose complicity in the Clearances remains undeniable, even if portraying him as their lone villain is far too simple.

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