On the 21st of the same month he was returned for Reading, and was re-elected for the same place to the three succeeding parliaments (1784, 1790, 1796).
On the death, in May 1797, of his father's maternal uncle John, baron Braybrooke and Lord Howard de Walden, by whom he had been adopted as heir, he succeeded to the Braybrooke barony, the latter having become extinct by limitation of patent [see Griffin, John, first Baron Braybrooke and Lord Howard de Walden]. He then assumed the additional surname and arms of Griffin, but did not actually come into possession of the Audley End estate until the death in 1802 of Dr. Parker, son-in-law of the late lord, who had a life interest in it. Braybrooke increased the property by the purchase of neighbouring manors and farms from the Earls of Bristol and Suffolk, besides making smaller acquisitions. He became lord-lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the county of Essex immediately after his accession to the peerage (19 Jan. 1798), and was also vice-admiral of Essex, recorder of Saffron Walden, high steward of Wokingham, hereditary visitor of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and provost-marshal of Jamaica.
Braybrooke died on 28 Feb. 1825, after a lingering illness, at his seat at Billingbear, and was buried at Laurence Waltham. In the house at Audley End there is a portrait of him in baron's robes, at the age of fifty-three, by Hoppner (engraved by C. Turner in ‘History of Audley End’); as well as a painting of him when young by Romney; and a ‘conversation piece,’ painted at Rome about 1774, representing him with a spaniel on his knee and several friends standing round. There is also a miniature in the library.
He married in June 1780, at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, Catherine, youngest daughter of George Grenville [q. v.], by whom he had issue, besides twin sons, who died immediately after birth, four sons—viz., Richard, afterwards third baron Braybrooke [q. v.]; Henry, captain in the dragoons, who died in 1809 while serving in Spain (see Gent. Mag. 1809, ii. 386); George (see below); and William, who died young. Of his four daughters, Catherine died unmarried in 1841; Mary married Sir Stephen Glynne, bart., of Hawarden; Caroline married Paul Beilby-Thompson, esq.; and Frances died young.
The son, George Neville, afterwards Grenville (1789–1854), educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge (M.A. 1810), was nominated by his father, the hereditary visitor, to the mastership of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1813. From 1814 to 1834 he was rector of Hawarden, Flintshire. In 1825 his uncle, Thomas Grenville [q. v.], made over to him Butleigh Court and the large property in Somerset which he had derived from James Grenville, lord Glastonbury (d. 1825), and Neville thereupon assumed the surname of Grenville. In 1846 Sir Robert Peel made him dean of Windsor. Neville died at his residence, Butleigh Court, on 10 June 1854. By his wife Charlotte, daughter of George Legge, earl of Dartmouth, he left four daughters and six sons (Gent. Mag. 1854, ii. 72).
[Rowland's Account of the Neville Family, table v.; Burke's Peerage; Ann. Reg. 1825, App. to Chron. p. 230; Foster's Peerage and Alumni Oxon.; Hist. of Audley End, by third Lord Braybrooke, pp. 53, 54, 55, 128, 132; Return of Members of Parliament.]
NEVILLE, RICHARD CORNWALLIS, fourth Baron Braybrooke (1820–1861), archæologist, third son of Richard Griffin Neville, third baron Braybrooke [q. v.], was born in Charles Street In the parish of St. George, Hanover Square, London, on 17 March 1820, and was educated at Eton from 1832 till 1837. On 2 June 1837 he was gazetted an ensign and lieutenant in the grenadier guards, and served with that regiment in Canada during the rebellion in the winter of 1838. On 5 Nov. in that year he had a narrow escape from drowning in the St. Lawrence. On 31 Dec. 1841 he was promoted to be lieutenant and captain, and on 2 Sept. 1842 retired from the service. For some years, aided by his sister, he devoted himself to the study of natural history, and to the investigation of the Roman and Saxon remains in the neighbourhood of Audley End, Essex, and ultimately attained a distinguished position among the practical archæologists of his day. At one period geology was his favourite pursuit, and he formed a collection of fossils, which he presented to the museum at Saffron Walden. He also brought together a beautiful series of stuffed birds. The most remarkable feature, however, of his collections at Audley End is the museum of antiquities of every period, the creation of his own exertions, and consisting almost exclusively of objects brought to light at the Roman station at Great Chesterford, or at other sites of Roman occupation in the vicinity of Audley End, and at the Saxon cemeteries excavated under his directions near Little Wilbraham and Linton in Cambridgeshire during 1851 and 1852. On 25 March 1847 he had been elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and from time to time he made communications to that body regarding his explorations (cf. Archæologia, xxxii. 350–4, 357–6). To the
