Adelbert Wellington Brownlow Cust , 3rd Earl Brownlow

Soldier, courtier and politician.

National Gallery Trustee (1897–1917).

Adelbert Wellington Brownlow Cust was the son of John Egerton, Viscount Alford, eldest son of John Cust, 1st Earl Brownlow, and Lady Marianne Margaret (Lady Marion Alford), daughter of Spencer Compton, 2nd Marquess of Northampton. In 1866 he was elected MP for North Shropshire but resigned his seat in 1867 when he succeeded to the earldom of Brownlow and viscountcy of Alford and entered the House of Lords. He had a military career, and held various offices, including Under-Secretary of State for War from 1889–92. He was Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire from 1867–1921. In 1868 he married Lady Adelaide Chatwynd-Talbot, daughter of Henry Chatwyndd-Talbot, 18th Earl of Shrewsbury.

His grandfather, John Cust, 1st Earl of Brownlow (1779–1853) was the brother of General Sir Edward Cust (1st Bart) (1794–1878), who married Mary Anne Boode, daughter of Lewis William Boode, from a family of Dutch plantation owners in Demerara. Mary’s mother Margaret was the daughter of the Revd Thomas Dannett of Liverpool. Margaret’s uncle was Henry Dannett, whose second son was the West India merchant James Dannett, who died in July 1837. John Cust and his co-trustee Wilbraham Egerton (UCL Department of History, ‘Wilbraham Egerton’, in UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership [online], London 2020, <https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/41827)> accessed 24 June 2021) were appointed in place of the original trustee James Dannett for the Greenwich Park Estate in Demerara in Guyana (then British Guiana), which included 185 enslaved people. In a claim for compensation for the estate Edward Cust was awarded half (£5029 7s 8d) from the estate, and the other half went to John Cust and Egerton (30 November 1835).

The Earl became a trustee of the National Gallery in 1897.

He was the grandson of John Cust, 1st Earl Brownlow (UCL Department of History, ‘John Cust, 1st Earl Brownlow’, in UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership [online], London 2020, <http://wwwdepts-live.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/8986> accessed 24 June 2021), who received compensation as trustee and executor for the enslaved British Guiana estate of the mother-in-law of his brother Edward (UCL Department of History, ‘General Sir Edward Cust, 1st Bart’, in UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership [online], London 2020, <https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/1282228190> accessed 24 June 2021).

No known connections with abolition.

Donor: in 1913 the 3rd Earl Brownlow donated NG2922 Scenes from the Passion by the Master of Delft. Then, in 1919, he donated Fra Filippo Lippi and Workshop, The Virgin and Child (NG3424).

Former owner: in 1914 he sold to the NG Anthony van Dyck’s Portrait of a Woman and a Child (NG3011).

In 1917 Countess Brownlow bequeathed Francesco Pesellino and Fra Filippo Lippi and Workshop’s Angel (Right Hand) (NG3162).

History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History, London 1964-, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/
Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website

C. Matthew et al. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 1992-, https://www.oxforddnb.com/
Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website

J. Turner et al. (eds), Grove Art Online, Oxford 1998-, https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/
Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website

UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership, London 2020, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website