William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (14 April 1738 – 30 October 1809) was a British aristocrat and Whig (and later Tory) politician who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 2 April to 18 December 1783 (succeeding William Petty and preceding William Pitt the Younger) and of the United Kingdom from 31 March 1807 to 4 October 1809 (succeeding William Grenville and preceding Spencer Perceval).
Biography[]
William Cavendish-Bentinck was born in Nottinghamshire, England on 14 April 1738, the son of William Bentinck, 2nd Duke of Portland. In 1766, he married the daughter of William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, fathering William Bentinck, 4th Duke of Portland, Lord William Bentinck, Lord Charles Bentinck, and Lord Frederick Cavendish-Bentinck. He was elected to Parliament in 1761 as a Foxite Whig MP for Weobley, and, a year later, he succeeded his father as Duke of Portland and entered the House of Lords. Portland briefly served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from April to August 1782 (succeeding Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle and preceding George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham) before serving as Prime Minister in 1783, with Charles James Fox serving as the grey eminence behind Portland. A conservative Whig, he opposed the French Revolution, and he served as Home Secretary from 1794 to 1801 (succeeding Henry Dundas and preceding Thomas Pelham, 2nd Earl of Chichester) and as Lord President of the Council from 1801 to 1805. In 1807, as leader of the Pittite faction in Parliament, Portland became Prime Minister, and he resigned in 1809 due to poor health and the scandalous duel between George Canning and Lord Castlereagh, and he died that same year.