Stuart, Dudley, lord, 1803-1854

Dudley Coutts Stuart was born in London on 11 January 1803. He studied at Christ's College, Cambridge and graduated in 1823. He was elected as MP for Arundel in 1830 and again in 1831, 1833, and 1835, and was MP for Marylebone from 1847. From the 1830s, and after the visit to England by Prince Adam Czartoryski in 1831 and his accounts of Russian Tsarist oppression in Poland, Stuart became a strong advocate for Polish independence. He organised public subscriptions and annual balls to supplement grants made by the House of Commons to victims of Russian, Austrian and Prussian oppression at that time. In 1854 he went to Sweden in the hope of gaining the support of King Oscar I in joining western powers in the measures for the reconstruction of Poland. Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart died in Stockholm on 17 November 1854 and was buried in Hertford, England, on 16 December 1854.

From the guide to the Letters of Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart (1803-1854), 1838-1853, (Edinburgh University Library)

...