Lives of the First World War

A three-quarter-length, full-face portrait showing Stanhope seated to the left with his hands on his lap wearing a black suit and black striped tie with pin. The painting is signed: ‘James Gunn’. James Richard Stanhope entered the House of Lords as the 7th Earl Stanhope upon his father’s death in 1905. He fought with the Grenadier Guards in the Boer War and the First World War; during the latter he was awarded the DSO and the MC. He was on the General Staff from 1915 to 1918. After the war he was more actively involved in Conservative politics, serving in numerous Government roles, including at the Admiralty. He was replaced as First Lord of the Admiralty by Winston Churchill at the outbreak of the Second World War and did not serve in his wartime coalition government. He was the first chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Maritime Museum, 1934–59. Upon his death, his country seat, Chevening House near Sevenoaks in Kent, was given to the nation. It has become the official

Plaque commemorating 7th Earl James Richard Stanhope, first chairman of the National Maritime Museum