Richard Aldworth Griffin-Neville,
Baron Braybrooke (1750-1825)
Born: 3rd July 1750 at Duke Street, Westminster, Middlesex
2nd Lord Braybrooke
Died: 28th February 1825
at Billingbear Park, Waltham St. Lawrence, Berkshire

Richard Aldworth Neville was the only son and heir of Richard Neville Aldworth-Neville and was born on 3rd July 1750 in Duke Street, Westminster. He matriculated at Merton College, Oxford, on 20th June 1768, was created M.A. on 4th July 1771, DCL on 3rd July 1810 and was incorporated LLD of Cambridge in 1819. He was MP for Grampound from 10th October 1774 till the dissolution in 1780, and for Buckingham in the next parliament till his appointment as agent to the Regiment of Buckinghamshire Militia in February 1782. On the 21st of the same month, he was returned for Reading, and was re-elected for the same place in the three succeeding parliaments (1784, 1790, 1796).

On the death, in May 1797, of his father's maternal uncle John, Baron Braybrooke and Lord Howard de Walden, by whom he had been adopted as heir, he succeeded to the Braybrooke Barony, the latter having become extinct by limitation of patent. He then assumed the additional surname and arms of Griffin, but did not actually come into possession of his uncle’s Audley End estate until the death, in 1802, of Dr. Parker, a son-in-law of the late lord, who had a life interest in it. Braybrooke increased the property by the purchase of neighbouring manors and farms from the Earls of Bristol and Suffolk, besides making smaller acquisitions. He became Lord-Lieutenant and custos rotulormn of the county of Essex immediately after his accession to the peerage, on 10th January 1798, and was also Vice-Admiral of Essex, Recorder of Saffron Walden, High Steward of Wokingham, Hereditary Visitor of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and Provost-Marshal of Jamaica.

Braybrooke died on 28th February 1825, after a lingering illness, at his seat of Billingbear Park, near Shurlock Row in Waltham St. Lawrence, and was buried in the parish church there. He had married, in June 1780, at Stowe in Buckinghamshire, Catherine, the youngest daughter of George Grenville, by whom he had issue, besides twin sons, who died immediately after birth, four sons – viz. Richard, afterwards 3rd Baron Braybrooke; Henry, Captain in the Dragoons, who died in 1809 while serving in Spain; George (1789-1854), the Dean of Windsor, who took the surname of Grenville upon inheriting Butleigh Court in Somerset from his maternal uncle; and William, who died young. Of his four daughters, Catherine died unmarried in 1841; Mary married Sir Stephen Glynne, bart., of Hawarden; Caroline married Paul Beilby-Thompson, esq; and Frances died young.

Edited from Sidney Lee's 'Dictionary of National Biography' (1894)