His mother was Louisa Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Nugent and a descendant of the Schuyler family and the Van Cortlandt family of British North America.

He entered Parliament as one of three representatives for Buckinghamshire in an 1876 by-election (succeeding the ennobled Benjamin Disraeli), a seat he held until 1885.

He was also involved in business and became a director of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in January 1868, and served as its chairman from June 1896 to February 1908.

He married Lady Augusta Henrietta, daughter of John Scott, 2nd Earl of Eldon, in 1859.

He survived her by twelve years and died at Swanbourne House, Winslow on 13 April 1918, at the age of eighty-eight.