Regarded as the most influential man in the county, he notably served as a director and later as chairman of the Bristol and Exeter Railway.

Her tomb chest with a full-length recumbent alabaster effigy by Edward Bowring Stephens is situated in St Clement's Church, Powderham, against the east wall of the south transept, with a plaster cast in the chapel attached to Powderham Castle, in an ogee arched alcove in the north wall of the chancel.

He was succeeded in the earldom by his youngest but only surviving son Edward: He owned 53,000 acres including 33,000 in County Limerick.

An oil painting of the 11th Earl hangs at Powderham Castle, high on the south wall of the Dining Hall.

The unveiling ceremony was attended by Sir Stafford Northcote (1818–1887), later Lord Lieutenant of Devon 1886–7, (whose own statue in Northernhay Gardens now stands nearby) with the Mayor and Corporation, other dignitaries and the Earl himself.

The plinth is of Cornish granite from the Cheesewring Quarries, on the rear of which a bronze plaque is affixed inscribed with verse from Wordsworth's Happy Warrior: "Who not content that former worth stand fast, Looks forward persevering to the last, From well to better daily self-surpast."

The unveiling ceremony occurred on 9 February 2010, attended this time by only a small handful of interested parties, including the then Earl of Devon and the Lord Mayor, John Winterbottom.

The 11th Earl installed a heraldic chimneypiece in the Dining Hall at Powderham Castle in memory of his grandfather Reginald Courtenay (1741–1803), Bishop of Exeter from 1797 to 1803, and of his parents.