[1] His character was later described by Jesse Foot thus: "The late Earl of Strathmore was not calculated to make even a good learned woman a pleasing husband.

In 1760 he took the Grand Tour of Europe, accompanied for the first several months by his college classmate Thomas Pitt, later the Baron Camelford.

[3] On 24 February 1767, at St George's Hanover Square Church he married the heiress Mary Eleanor Bowes, who was already possessed of her late father's estates such as Gibside.

As per the stipulations of the will of the father of the bride, he assumed his wife's name of Bowes, a fairly common arrangement among the propertied classes that required an Act of Parliament.

On 7 March 1776, Lord Strathmore died of tuberculosis whilst at sea on his way to Portugal and was succeeded in turn by his sons, John and Thomas.