In keeping with his father's outlook,[4] he ran the estate on paternalistic lines, charging his agricultural tenants low rents in the belief that farming was less a business than a way of life.

Amongst his other treasured possessions were Guercino's Allegory with Venus, Mars, Cupid and Time, and a wood-carving by Grinling Gibbons after Tintoretto's Crucifixion.

Except on rare occasions in aid of charity, and by converting it into a military hospital during the First World War, Lord Stamford did not open his home to the public, choosing to live as a recluse.

An idealist, he espoused the principles of Christian socialism and, although lacking their panache, his outlook was in harmony with the Young England movement.

He sold his Carrington estate to a company which became a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, but added to the landholding at Dunham Massey by prudent purchases of other farms in the post-War years.

On 17 July 1946 he and his mother entertained King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, to luncheon at Dunham Massey.Lord Stamford did not marry.