KEPPEL, George, Visct. Bury (1724-72).

The son and grandson of successful courtiers, Lord Bury became the ‘chief favourite’Walpole, Mems. Geo. II, i. 82. of the Duke of Cumberland, whom he served as aide-decamp at Dettingen, Fontenoy and Culloden. He was chosen by Cumberland to bring the news of Culloden to the King, who gave him a present of £1,000 and made him his own aide-de-camp.Walpole to Mann, 25 Apr. 1746; C. S. Terry, Albemarle Pprs. i. 2, 4. When he was returned for Chichester by his uncle, the Duke of Richmond, in 1746 Newcastle wrote to Lord Albemarle:

I must congratulate you upon the justice, which all the world does to dear Bury. He is now Member for Chichester, and consequently a Sussex man, which is an additional reason for me to love him.Add. 32708, f. 128.

According to the Duke of Richmond there was no officer in the army ‘under forty years old that knows more than Bury’;Add. 32707, f. 98. but Wolfe, who served under him, had a different opinion:

Lord Bury professes fairly, and means nothing, in that he resembles his father, and a million of other showy men that are seen in palaces and in the courts of Kings. He desires never to see his regiment, and wishes that no officer would ever leave it.R. Wright, Life of Wolfe, 185-6.

Re-elected in 1747 while serving in Flanders, he was classed as a government supporter. His only known vote was against Lord Hardwicke’s clandestine marriage bill, 4 June 1753.Add. 32732, f. 22. He died 13 Oct. 1772.