Annesley, George, 2nd Earl of Mountnorris (1769 -1844)

George Annesley was the second, but eldest surviving, son of Arthur Annesley, 1st Earl of Mountnorris, and his first wife, Lucy Fortescue Lyttleton, only daughter and eventual heir of George 1st Baron Lyttleton. He was educated at Rugby School, and Brasenose College, Oxford to which he was admitted in 1787. Styled Viscount Valentia from 1793 to 1816, he travelled in the east from 1802 to 1806, and published an account of his travels Voyages and travels to India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt, in the years 1802, 1803, 1804, 1805 and 1806. 3 vols. London, 1809. A Member of Parliament for Yarmouth, Isle of Wight from 1808 1810, he was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Linnaean Society and of the Society of Antiquaries. He married, 3 September 1790, Anne, 8th daughter of William Courtenay, 2nd Viscount Courtenay of Powderham. She bore him three sons, two of whom died in infancy, and then left him for another man. The surviving son died during his father's lifetime without issue, and so the Earldom died with him, and the estates and the Viscountcy passed to his distant relative Arthur, 11th Viscount, for whom the Valentia library was sold by Farebrother, Clark & Lye at Arley Castle, Staffordshire on the 6th of December 1852.