Devonshire, Andrew Robert Buxton Cavendish, 11th duke of

▪ 2005

      British landowner (b. Jan. 2, 1920, London, Eng.—d. May 3, 2004, Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, Eng.), set an example to other British aristocrats when he paid off crushing inheritance taxes and rescued Chatsworth, his family's vast Derbyshire estate, by putting the 297-room 16th-century house into trust and generating profits through paying visitors and other income-producing measures. The younger son of the 10th duke of Devonshire, he unexpectedly came in line for the title on the death of his older brother, William (a brother-in-law of future U.S. president John F. Kennedy), in 1944. After his father's death in November 1950, the new duke and his wife, the former Deborah Freeman-Mitford (youngest of the six celebrated Mitford sisters), devised varied schemes for paying the inheritance tax (which totaled some $20 million). They donated the family's 16th-century Hardwick House to the nation; sold valuable paintings, thousands of hectares of farmland, and other assets; and turned Chatsworth into a working farm and a popular tourist destination. The duke, who was estimated to be richer than the queen, also was patron to numerous charities, raised Thoroughbred racehorses, and served (1960–64) in Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's cabinet. He was granted a knighthood in 1996.

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