He was the second son of George Villiers (1759–1827), who married, on 17 April 1798, Theresa, only daughter of John Parker, 1st Baron Boringdon.
There he mixed with Charles Austin, Edward Strutt, John Romilly, Thomas Babington Macaulay, and others, most of them followers of Jeremy Bentham.
On taking his degree in 1822 he entered the colonial office, where Sir Henry Taylor became early in 1824 his subordinate and then a close friend.
[2] Villiers joined in 1825 a debating club called "The Academics", where several of his college friends and John Stuart Mill discussed political and economic topics.
[2] At the general election in June 1826 Villiers was returned to parliament for the borough of Hedon in Yorkshire, and sat for it until the dissolution in 1830.
[2] Between 1825 and 1828, Villiers and Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton wrote, under the pseudonym 'Vindex', articles to the Star newspaper, in which they refuted the objections that others had made to the analysis of slavery made by Thomas Moody, Kt., the Parliamentary Commissioner on West Indian Slavery, and defended the character of Moody.
A letter written by him in February 1829 was shown to Richard Lalor Sheil, who then brought about the suppression of the Catholic Association.
After three months' suffering from an abscess in the head, he died on 3 December 1832 at Carclew, the seat of Sir Charles Lemon, near Penryn, where he was staying.