Ohiiuavy, 
875 
OBITUARY. 
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE, K.G. 
Born April 27, 1808: Died December 21, 1891. 
By the death of the seventh Duke of Devonshire, not only is the 
Royal Agricultural Society deprived of one of the very earliest of 
its members, but the nation at large loses a nobleman of great dis- 
tinction and remarkable gifts. Other biographies will do justice to 
his commanding talents and his high position amongst his fellow- 
countrymen ; the present notice must of necessity be confined to a 
statement of the services which he has rendered to agriculture 
during his long and useful life. 
Born on April 27, 1808, he succeeded in 18.34 to the earldom of 
Burlington ; and in May 1838, at the age of thirty, he was one of 
the very first who gave in their adhesion to the infant Society for 
the general advancement of agriculture, which was then founded by 
Earl Spencer, the Duke of Richmond, and other notables of the time. 
The Earl of Burlington's name appears in the first list of Governors 
and Members of the English Agricultural Society that was ever 
published — and the only survivors of those first subscribers are now 
Sir Harry Verney, Bart, (the nonogenarlan " Father of the Society "), 
Earl Grey, K.G., Lord Charles J. F. Russell, Mr. T. B. Saunders, 
and Lord Winmarleigh. 
The Duke has, ever since 1838, remained a Governor of the 
Royal Agricultural Society, and at the meeting of the Council held 
on March 6, 1890, he was, with other original members of the 
English Agricultural Society, elected a Foundation Life Governor. 
He first joined the Council on February 6, 1867, when, on the 
motion of the then President (Mr. H. S. Thompson), seconded by 
Lord Tredegar, he was elected to fill the vacancy caused by the 
promotion of Sir Edward Kerrison to be Vice-President. Not long 
after, in April 1869, he was, on the motion of Mr. John Dent Dent, 
seconded by Mr. H. S. Thompson, elected a Vice-President to fill the 
vacancy caused by the death of Sir J. V. B. Johnstoiie, Bart., M.P. 
At the very next meeting of the Council, held on May 5, 1869, he 
was nominated as President for the year 1869-70, and he assumed 
office after the highly successful Meeting held under the presidency 
of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales at Manchester, retiring at the 
Oxford Meeting of 1870. 
The Duke's year of office was, on the whole, a somewhat unevent- 
ful one ; but during his presidency, the Council came to the highly 
