Family and Education

b. 5 Nov. 1727, 4th s. of William Anne, 2nd Earl of Albemarle, and bro of George Keppel, Visct. Bury and Hon. Augustus Keppel.  educ. Westminster.  unm.

Offices Held

Ensign 2 Ft. Gds. 1744, lt. 1745; capt.-lt. 1 Ft. Gds. 1751, capt. and lt.-col. 1752; col. 1760; maj.-gen. 1762; col. 14 Ft. 1765-75; lt.-gen. 1772; col. 12 Lt. Drag. 1775- d.

Biography

Keppel sat for Chichester on the interest of his cousin, the Duke of Richmond, and in Parliament belonged with his brothers to the Rockingham group. Only one speech by him is reported: 11 Dec. 1778, on the motion for Palliser’s court martial. In 1780 the English Chronicle described him as ‘a man that troubles himself very little with public business’, and wrote about his election at Chichester:

He has been so very negligent in the execution of his duty in Parliament that on his canvass ... he was compelled to the uncomfortable necessity of submitting to the coarsest admonitions that extreme vulgarity, buoyed by temporary consequence, could possibly devise, and to receive with patience the blunt remonstrances of almost every shoemaker in the borough.

On 21 Oct. 1781 Augustus Keppel wrote to his mother about William:1 ‘My poor brother is indeed very ill, and in a most critical way ... he has not the powers of speech, except a syllable now and then.’  He died 1 Mar. 1782.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: John Brooke

Notes

• 1. Albemarle mss.