Marquess of Bute
(1847-1900)

Born on 12 September 1847, John Patrick Crichton-Stuart was the only son of the 2nd Marquess of Bute. He succeeded to the marquisate when he was only six months old and grew up to enjoy a vast inheritance which reportedly made him the richest man in the world. His conversion to Catholicism at the age of 21 scandalised Victorian society.

A landed aristocrat, industrial magnate, antiquarian and scholar, his vast range of interests included religion, medievalism, the occult, architecture, travelling, linguistics and philanthropy. A prolific writer, bibliophile and traveller, as well as, somewhat reluctantly, a businessman, his energies were on a monumentally Victorian scale. His enormous expenditure on building and restoration made him the foremost architectural patron of the 19th century and created his most lasting memorial. His collaboration with William Burges created two of the finest masterpieces of the late Victorian Gothic Revival, Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch.

On 16 April 1872, he married into one of Britain’s most illustrious Catholic families. The new marchioness was the Honourable Gwendolen Mary Anne Fitzalan-Howard, daughter Edward George Fitzalan-Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Glossop. The marriage produced four children.

The Marquess of Bute died, aged only 53, on 9 October 1900.  His body was buried in a small chapel on the Isle of Bute, while his heart was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.