[1] He was educated at Eton College and was set to attend the University of Cambridge, but the plans were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I.

[8] He served as a Lord of the Treasury from 1935 to 1941 under successively Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill and was sworn of the Privy Council in the 1939 Birthday Honours.

Through his marriage, he became a brother-in-law of Lady Dorothy Cavendish, who was the wife of Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963.

Together, they had three children:[12] Stuart died at Salisbury Infirmary on 20 February 1971, aged 74, and was succeeded in the viscountcy by his elder son.

[1] Before his marriage, Stuart had been noted as a suitor of Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon while serving as an equerry to her eventual husband Prince Albert, Duke of York (the future King George VI).