Stanhope was the son of Arthur Charles Stanhope, of Mansfield Woodhouse, and Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of Charles Headlam, of Kerby Hall, Yorkshire,[1] and cousin, godson and, later, adopted son of Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (whose titles he inherited at his death in 1773).

His adoptive father directed his early education and his tutors included the poet Cuthbert Shaw and Edward Gibbon's friend the Swiss Jacques Georges Deyverdun, as well as Adam Ferguson, Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and the forger Dr William Dodd.

[1] During his service in Germany he became a member of the Masonic Lodge Minerva zu den drei Palmen Leipzig in 1773.

[6] Lord Chesterfield married firstly, Anne, daughter of Reverend Robert Thistlewayte, on 20 August 1777.

Lord Chesterfield survived her by two years and died at Bretby, Derbyshire, in August 1815, aged 59.