William Legge, 10th Earl of Dartmouth

{{Short description|British politician and hereditary peer}} {{Use British English|date=February 2018}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2018}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Earl of Dartmouth | honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100|FCA}} | image = William-(The-Earl-of)-Dartmouth -United-Kingdom-MIP-Europaparlamentby-Leila-Paul-4.jpg | leader = Nigel Farage Diane James Paul Nuttall Steve Crowther<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ukip.org/news |title=UKIP-Interim leader selected |author=Steve Crowther |work=UKIP-News and Media}}</ref> {{small|(acting)}} Henry Bolton | office = Deputy Chair of the UK Independence Party | term_start = 24 February 2016 | term_end = 22 January 2018 Served alongside Diane James {{small|(2016)}} Suzanne Evans {{small|(2016–2017)}} | predecessor = Neil Hamilton | successor = Margot Parker | office1 = UKIP Spokesperson for International Trade | parliament1 = European | term_start1 = 24 February 2016 | term_end1 = 22 January 2018 | predecessor1 = Roger Knapman | successor1 = ''Vacant'' | office2 = Member of the European Parliament for South West England | term_start2 = 14 July 2009 | term_end2 = 1 July 2019 | predecessor2 = Roger Knapman | successor2 = James Glancy | office3 = Member of the House of Lords | status3 = Lord Temporal | term_start3 = 14 December 1997 | term_end3 = 11 November 1999 as a hereditary peer | predecessor3 = The 9th Earl of Dartmouth | successor3 = ''Seat abolished''{{thin space|{{efn|Pursuant to the House of Lords Act 1999.}}}} | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1949|9|23|df=y}} | birth_place = Westminster, London, England | death_date = | death_place = | party = Independent (2018–present) | other_party = Conservative {{small|(before 2007)}} UK Independence Party {{small|(2007–2018)}} | spouse = {{marriage|Fiona Campbell|June 2009}} {{marriage|Diandra Luker|2025}}<ref>[https://www.hola.com/actualidad/20250923857397/diandra-exmujer-de-michael-douglas-se-casa-en-gibraltar-con-el-hermanastro-de-lady-di/ Wedding of the Earl of Dartmouth]</ref> | partner = Claire Kavanagh | children = 1 | father = Gerald Legge, 9th Earl of Dartmouth | mother = Raine McCorquodale | education = Eton College | alma_mater = Christ Church, Oxford Harvard Business School | website = {{URL|williamdartmouth.com}} }} '''William Legge, 10th Earl of Dartmouth''' (born 23 September 1949), styled '''Viscount Lewisham''' from 1962 to 1997, is a British politician and hereditary peer, usually known as '''William Dartmouth'''.

From 2009 to 2019, Dartmouth sat in the European Parliament as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South West England. He was elected for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and served as national spokesman on trade from 2010 to 2018.<ref name=bbc>{{cite news |title=UKIP leader Nigel Farage drops Hamilton as deputy chair |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-35653196 |publisher=BBC News |date=24 February 2016}}</ref> He resigned from UKIP in 2018 due to his dissatisfaction with the direction of the party.

==Early life and education== Dartmouth is the eldest son of the 9th Earl of Dartmouth and Raine McCorquodale, the daughter of romantic novelist Dame Barbara Cartland. He became a stepbrother of Lady Diana Spencer when in 1976 his mother remarried.

Dartmouth was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was elected an officer of the Oxford University Conservative Association and of the Oxford Union Society. He graduated BA, later promoted to MA,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/li/member_of_parliament.in.Bumpers%20Farm,%20Chippenham,%20Wiltshire/ |title=www.oxfordmail.co.uk |publisher=oxfordmail.co.uk |access-date=21 July 2016}}</ref> and proceeded to the Harvard Business School, where he graduated MBA.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.examiner.co.uk/lifestyle/house-inside-home-huddersfields-aristocracy-5009279 |title=Our House: Inside the home of Huddersfield's aristocracy |first=Emma |last=Davison |date=10 November 2009 |website=huddersfieldexaminer |access-date=29 January 2019}}</ref>

==Life and career== Dartmouth qualified as a chartered accountant, which was also the occupation of his father Gerald Legge, 9th Earl of Dartmouth.<ref name=Burke/>

At the general election of February 1974, as Viscount Lewisham, Dartmouth unsuccessfully contested Leigh, Lancashire, for the Conservatives, and at the election of October 1974 he fought Stockport South for them.<ref name=Burke>''Burkes Peerage'' volume 1 (2003), p. 1036.</ref>

In 1975, he became a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.<ref name=Burke/> In 1997, he inherited his father's peerages, and as Earl of Dartmouth sat as a Conservative peer in the House of Lords until 1999, when the first Blair ministry's House of Lords Act 1999 removed all but 92 hereditary peers from Parliament. In January 2007, Dartmouth announced he was leaving the Conservatives in favour of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), citing concerns about the policies of David Cameron, then Leader of HM Opposition.<ref>{{cite news |title=Conservative peer defects to UKIP |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6281423.stm |access-date=14 May 2008 |publisher=BBC News |date=20 January 2007}}</ref>

At the European Parliament election of 2009, Dartmouth was elected as the second UKIP MEP for the South West England region and re-elected in 2014, when he was the first UKIP MEP on the regional list. In the European Parliament he sat with the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group (later the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy) and served on the Committee on International Trade. In 2010, he became UKIP's national spokesman on Trade and Industry and in February 2016 was appointed as one of the party's two national Deputy Chairmen.<ref name=bbc/> He was the author of many UKIP, EFD, and EFDD publications. On 22 January 2018, following UKIP's National Executive Committee vote of no confidence in leader Henry Bolton on the previous day, Dartmouth stood down as trade and industry spokesman, placing further pressure on Bolton to resign.<ref>{{cite news |last=Walker |first=Peter |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/22/ukip-leader-henry-bolton-pressure-step-down-deputy-resigns |title=Ukip leader under more pressure to step down as top party figures quit |newspaper=The Guardian |date=22 January 2018 |access-date=22 January 2018}}</ref>

In September 2018, Dartmouth resigned from the UK Independence Party, citing concerns about the behaviour of the new Leader, Gerard Batten, and complaining that the party was "widely perceived as both homophobic and anti-Islamic".<ref name=Sky/> Dartmouth condemned Batten for leading the party towards the far right and denounced his approval of and support for extreme right-wing groups and "outlandish individuals".<ref>[http://www.williamdartmouth.com Main page] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220226045257/http://www.williamdartmouth.com/ |date=26 February 2022 }}, williamdartmouth.com, 26 September 2018.</ref> Dartmouth said he would not be joining another political party and would serve the rest of his term in the European Parliament as an Independent, continuing to represent the South West of England and Gibraltar.<ref name=Sky>[https://news.sky.com/story/ukip-mep-william-dartmouth-quits-party-over-anti-islam-stance-11509416 MEP Lord Dartmouth quits UKIP saying party is 'widely perceived as both homophobic and anti-Islamic'], Sky News, 26 September 2018.</ref>

==Family and personal life== [[File:Earl of Dartmouth COA.svg|thumb|right|110px| Legge arms]] In June 2009, Dartmouth married Melbourne-born former model Fiona Campbell, now styled '''Lady Dartmouth''',<ref>{{cite news |last=Hornery |first=Andrew |date=15 January 2013 |title=Good line for bodice ripper |url=https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/good-line-for-bodice-ripper-20130114-2cq05.html |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |access-date=21 July 2016}}</ref> whose first husband, Matt Handbury, is a nephew of Rupert Murdoch.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kittybrewster.com/ancestry/murdoch.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061106180350/http://www.kittybrewster.com/ancestry/murdoch.htm |url-status=usurped |archive-date=6 November 2006 |title=The Genealogy of the Murdoch Family |publisher=kittybrewster.com |access-date=21 July 2016}}</ref> They subsequently divorced.

Dartmouth has a son, Gerald Glen Kavanagh-Legge (born 2005), from his previous relationship with the television producer Claire Kavanagh.<ref>[https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=8782&h=20333437&tid=&pid=&queryId=0afc457e8d5c697c159934395522144b&usePUB=true&_phsrc=xKt5&_phstart=successSource Gerald Glen G J Kavanagh-Legge], in ''England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1916-2007'', ancestry.co.uk, accessed 1 July 2021: "Name: Gerald Glen G J Kavanagh-Legge / Registration Date: Apr 2005 / District and Subdistrict: 258/1B /Registration District: Westminster / Mother's Maiden Name: Kavanagh / Register Number: B97C / Entry Number: 193".</ref>

In 2025 in Gibraltar he married privately to Diandra Luker, former wife of Michael Douglas.

The heir presumptive to the peerages is Dartmouth's brother, the Hon. Rupert Legge (born 1951), whose heir is his son Edward Legge (born 1986).<ref name=Burke/>

==Notes== {{Notelist}}

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== {{Commons category}} *{{Hansard-contribs | mr-william-legge-1 | the Earl of Dartmouth }} *[http://genealogics.org/pedigree.php?personID=I00104936&tree=LEO pedigree of William Legge, 10th Earl of Dartmouth] *[http://www.debretts.com/people/biographies/browse/d/1259/William+Legge.aspx ''Debrett's People of Today''] *[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/96958/WILLIAM_%28THE+EARL+OF%29+DARTMOUTH_home.html European Parliament profile] *[http://www.williamdartmouth.com Lord Dartmouth's website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220226045257/http://www.williamdartmouth.com/ |date=26 February 2022 }} *http://www.ukipmeps.org/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120421175908/http://www.ukipmeps.org/ |date=21 April 2012 }}

{{s-start}} {{s-reg|gb}} {{s-bef|before=Gerald Legge}} {{s-ttl|title=Earl of Dartmouth|years=1997–present|lords=1997–1999}} {{s-inc|heir=Hon. Rupert Legge|heir-type=Heir presumptive}} {{s-reg|en}} {{s-bef|before=Gerald Legge}} {{s-ttl|title=Baron Dartmouth|years=1997–present}} {{s-inc|heir=Hon. Rupert Legge|heir-type=Heir presumptive}} {{s-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dartmouth, William Legge, 10th Earl}} Category:1949 births Category:Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Category:Conservative Party (UK) hereditary peers 10 Category:Harvard Business School alumni William Category:Living people Category:MEPs for England 2009–2014 Category:MEPs for England 2014–2019 Category:People educated at Eton College Category:UK Independence Party MEPs Dartmouth