Millicent Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland

Millicent Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, The Duchess of Sutherland (née Lady Millicent Fanny St. Clair-Erskine, 20 October 1867 – 20 August 1955) was a British society hostess, social reformer, author, editor, journalist, and playwright, often using the pen name Erskine Gower. Her first husband was Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th Duke of Sutherland. By her two later marriages, she was known as Lady Millicent Fitzgerald and Lady Millicent Hawes, the latter of which was the name she used at the time of her death.

She was born at Dysart House in Fife, the eldest daughter of the Scottish Conservative politician Robert St Clair-Erskine, 4th Earl of Rosslyn. Her sisters were Sybil Fane, Countess of Westmorland and Lady Angela Forbes.

Their mother, Blanche Adeliza Fitzroy, was the widow of the Hon. Charles Maynard, making them half-sisters to Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick. Their maternal grandfather was Henry Fitzroy, whose father, the Reverend Lord Henry Fitzroy, was a Canon of Westminster Abbey, and grandfather was the Prime Minister Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton.

Lady Millicent St. Clair-Erskine was married three times. She married Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Marquess of Stafford, eldest son and heir of the 3rd Duke of Sutherland, on 20 October 1884, her 17th birthday. He inherited the Dukedom of Sutherland on his father's death in 1892 and died in 1913.

They had four children:

The family had homes in Scotland, Staffordshire and London. She became a great society hostess at their London home, Stafford House, associated with both the Marlborough House set and the Souls. She also developed a reputation as an advocate for social reform, although to a lesser extent than her half-sister Daisy Warwick. She was known as ‘Meddlesome Millie’ for her campaigning for better working conditions in the Potteries, near the family seat. Her caricature appears in Arnold Bennett’s Clayhanger Family novels as a countess with an ‘interfering meddlesomeness which so frequently exasperates the Five Towns’. However her campaign to remove lead paint glazes from Staffordshire pottery was successful.

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