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Introduction

For over four hundred years the Leveson-Gower family exerted an influence over England’s social, economic and political life. By the early nineteenth century Professor Eric Richards suggests the family were amongst the greatest and most powerful in England, in possession of ‘one of the largest inherited fortunes in modern British history’. The Sutherland Papers contain thousands of documents relating to the history of the Leveson-Gower family from sixteenth century Wolverhampton wool merchant James Leveson (c.1500-1547) to Millicent Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, the fourth Duchess of Sutherland (1867-1955). Papers relating to the family’s social and domestic life feature here alongside political and military correspondence, legal papers and photographs.

Quotations taken from Professor Eric Richards, The Leviathan of Wealth: The Sutherland Fortune in the Industrial Revolution (Routledge, 1973)

Click on the links below to learn more about the history of the family in the Sutherland Papers.

The Leveson Family, c.1299-1561
The Leveson Family, 1550-1605
From Leveson to Leveson-Gower, 1598-1691
From Baron Gower to Marquis of Stafford, 1675-1803
The Dukes and Duchesses of Sutherland, 1758-1955