The name of Apsley adopted by the family derived from Thakenham, near Pulborough in east Sussex, which may have referred to apse - lea or a 'church in a meadow'.

Bathurst was known for his wit and learning, for his connections with poets and scholars of his time, and for the famous landscape garden he created at his seat, Cirencester House, in Gloucestershire.

He was the son of Sir Benjamin Bathurst, Cofferer of the Household and Governor of the British East India Company, by his wife Frances, daughter of Sir Allen Apsley and had previously been elevated to the Peerage of Great Britain sixty years before in 1712 as Baron Bathurst, of Battlesden in the County of Bedford.

In 1771, four years before the death of his father, he was raised to the Peerage of Great Britain in his own right as Baron Apsley, in the County of Sussex.

His eldest son, the fourth Earl, represented Weobley and Cirencester in the House of Commons as a Tory.

His wife Viola Bathurst, Lady Apsley, succeeded him as Member of Parliament for Bristol Central.

Lord Bathurst was succeeded by his grandson, the eighth Earl, who held political office under Harold Macmillan as a Lord-in-waiting (government whip in the House of Lords) from 1957 to 1961 and as Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from 1961 to 1962.

The heir apparent is the present holder's earl's son Benjamin George Henry Bathurst, Lord Apsley (b.