by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2018

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom once during the reign of Queen Victoria: March 1894 – June 1895. Born on May 7, 1847 at his parents’ house on Charles Street in Mayfair, London, he was the eldest of the two sons and the third of the four children of Archibald Primrose, Lord Dalmeny and Lady Wilhelmina Stanhope (1819–1901), a historian and genealogist, the daughter of Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Stanhope. Primrose’s father used the courtesy title of Lord Dalmeny as the heir of his father Archibald Primrose, 4th Earl of Rosebery.

Unfortunately, during the Christmas season of 1859, Rosebery’s father Lord Dalmeny was ill with pleurisy and during his recovery, he died of heart failure on January 23, 1851, at the age of 41. At that time 3 ½-year-old Rosebery became the heir to his grandfather’s peerage and was styled Lord Dalmeny. Upon his grandfather’s death in 1868, 21-year-old Rosebery became the 5th Earl of Rosebery.

Rosebery’s mother, born Lady Wilhelmina Stanhope, was a Maid of Honor at Queen Victoria’s coronation and one of the bridesmaids at her wedding. After her first husband’s death, she married again in 1854 to Lord Harry Vane, youngest son of William Vane, 1st Duke of Cleveland who succeeded his brother as Duke of Cleveland in 1864, and changed his surname to Powlett. Wilhelmina was a historian and among her works were three volumes of The Battle Abbey Roll with some Account of the Norman Lineages, short histories concerning the origins of several hundred English families of Norman origin.

Rosebery had three siblings:

• Lady Mary Catherine Constance Primrose (1844 – 1935), married Henry Walter Hope-Scott, had one child
• Lady Constance Evelyn Primrose (1846 – 1939), married Henry Wyndham, 2nd Baron Leconfield, had nine children
• Everard Henry Primrose (1848–1885), Colonel in the Grenadier Guards and the Military Attaché at Vienna, unmarried

After attending preparatory schools in Hertfordshire and Brighton, Rosebery attended Eton College from 1860 – 1863. He then attended Brighton College between 1863 and 1865 and then entered Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1869. When his grandfather died in 1868, Rosebery was eligible to sit in the House of Lords as in 1828, his grandfather had been created 1st Baron Rosebery in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The Earl of Rosebery was a Scottish peerage and Peerages of Scotland did not automatically entitle their holders a seat in the House of Lords.

Rosebery literally had the good fortune to marry Hannah de Rothschild, the only child and sole heiress of Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild. Upon the death of her father in 1874, 23-year-old Hannah was the richest woman in the United Kingdom, inheriting Mentmore Towers which was a large country house in Buckinghamshire, a London mansion, a large art collection, and assets of more than two million pounds.

On March 20, 1878, Rosebery and Hannah were married at the Board Room of Guardians in Mount Street, London, and had a blessing at Christ Church in Down Street, Piccadilly, London. Rosebery’s mother was horrified at the thought of her son marrying a Jewish woman, even a Rothschild. No male member of the Rothschild family attended the wedding. However, the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) and Queen Victoria’s cousin Prince George, Duke of Cambridge attended and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli gave the bride away. Rosebery felt that raising their children in the Jewish faith was an impassable barrier at this time and his four children were raised in the Church of England.

• Lady Sybil Primrose (1879–1955), married General Sir Charles Grant, had one son
• Lady Margaret Primrose (1881–1967), married Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe, had one son and one daughter
• Albert Edward Harry Meyer Archibald Primrose, 6th Earl of Rosebery (known as Harry) (January 1882 – 1974), married (1) Dorothy Grosvenor, had two children, divorced (2) Dame Eva Bruce (DBE),  daughter of Henry Campbell Bruce, 2nd Baron Aberdare, had one son Neil Primrose who succeeded his father as the 7th Earl of Rosebery
• The Honorable Neil Primrose ( December 1982 – 1917), married Lady Victoria Stanley, daughter of Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby, had one daughter; Neil was killed in action during World War I.  See Unofficial Royalty: November 1917: Royalty and World War I.

While Hannah gave Rosebery wealth, he gave his Jewish wife an entrance into the aristocracy, something that her wealth could not buy because of anti-Semitism. The Countess of Rosebery supported her husband in his political career and became a philanthropist concentrating on public health, especially with working-class Jewish women living in the poorer parts of London.

Sadly, Hannah died from typhoid fever on November 19, 1890, at the age of 39. She was also suffering from nephritis, a kidney disease, which had greatly weakened her condition, and would have killed her within two years. Hannah was buried following the rites of the Jewish religion and was buried with her birth family at Willesden Jewish Cemetery in London. Only male mourners attended the funeral service which included most of Prime Minister William Gladstone’s cabinet. Hannah’s death was particularly difficult for Rosebery. He confessed to Queen Victoria in a letter of the great pain he suffered when “another creed steps in to claim the corpse.”

In 1881, Rosebery was appointed Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department by Prime Minister William Gladstone who owed Rosebery in part for the electoral success of the Liberal Party in 1880. He was appointed Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs in the new Gladstone Government in February 1886 but resigned in July with Gladstone. He served again as Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs in 1892-1894.

In early 1894, the 84-year-old Gladstone retired from active politics, almost blind and hard of hearing. However, Queen Victoria, who rejected the other leading Liberals, did not ask Gladstone who should succeed him but sent for Rosebery. His term as Prime Minister was unsuccessful. On June 21, 1895, Rosebery’s Government lost a vote in committee on army supply by just seven votes. Rosebery saw this as a vote of censure on his government and resigned as Prime Minister and in October 1896, he resigned as leader of the Liberal Party. In 1911, Rosebery made his last appearance in the House of Lords.

On November 15, 1917, Rosebery’s youngest child 34-year-old Neil died from wounds received in action at Gezer, Palestine while leading his squadron against Turkish positions on the Abu Shusha Ridge during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the Third Battle of Gaza. He was buried in the Ramleh Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery now in Ramla, Israel. Neil had followed his father into politics and was elected in 1910 as a Member of Parliament for Wisbech. He served as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury. In June 1917, he became a member of the Privy Council. See Unofficial Royalty: November 1917: Royalty and World War I.

A few days before the World War I Armistice (November 11, 1918), Rosebery suffered a stroke. While he regained his mental faculties, his movement, hearing, and sight remained impaired for the rest of his life. Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery died at one of his homes, The Durdans in Epsom, Surrey, England on May 21, 1929, at the age of 82. He was buried at the Dalmeny Parish Church in Dalmeny, Scotland near Dalmeny House, the ancestral seat of the Earls of Rosebery.

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Works Cited

• Baird, Julia. Victoria The Queen. Random House, 2016.
• De.wikipedia.org. (2018). Archibald Primrose, 5. Earl of Rosebery. [online] Available at: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Primrose,_5._Earl_of_Rosebery [Accessed 3 Aug. 2018].
• En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Primrose,_5th_Earl_of_Rosebery [Accessed 3 Aug. 2018].
• En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Primrose,_Countess_of_Rosebery [Accessed 3 Aug. 2018].
• Erickson, Carolly. Her Little Majesty: The Life of Queen Victoria.Simon and Schuster, 1997.
• Hubbard, Kate. Serving Victoria: Life In The Royal Household. Harper Collins Publishers, 2012