The 3rd Earl Amherst 1836-1910

Caricature of the 3rd. Earl Amherst which appeared in Vanity Fair on March 10, 1904
Read article from Vanity Fair of March 10, 1904		Read article about the artist 'Spy' (Sir Leslie Ward)

General Sir Jeffrey Amherst (1717-1797) who won distinction in the conquest of Canada with General Wolfe, and became the Governor General of the British possessions in North America, was made a Baron in 1776.

His nephew, William Pitt Amherst (1773-1857) who was the Governor General of India from 1823 to 1828, succeeded to the title and was made an Earl in 1826.

The Earldom must be distinguished from the Barony of Amherst of Hackney, which was created in 1892 and remains in the Cecil family.

The eldest son of the Earl is known by the courtesy title of Viscount Holmesdale and the family seat, Montreal, and its estates are situated in Kent near Sevenoaks.

The Rt. Hon. William Archer, who became the 3rd Earl, was born on the 26th March 1836, the year before Queen Victoria came to the throne. Educated at Eton, he became a Captain of the Coldstream Guards, served in the Crimean War and was badly wounded at the seige of Sebastopol.

He was initiated in the Westminster and Keystone Lodge No. 10 on 5th February, 1856, and his co-initiate became the M.W. Bro. The 4th Earl of Carnarvon. He was the S.D. of his Mother Lodge in 1857 and joined the Invicta Lodge No. 709 at Ashford, Kent, in 1860.

As Viscount Holmesdale, at Gravesend on the 22nd October, 1860, he was installed Provincial G.M. of Kent, which office he held until 1905, when he was succeeded by his nephew, Col. F.S. Wykeham (afterwards 1st Lord) Cornwallis. The present Provincial G.M. of Kent is the 2nd Lord Cornwallis.

On his completing 21 years as their Provincial G.M., the brethren of Kent presented Viscount Holmesdale with three vases of magnificent design and workmanship, valued at 500 guineas, and Lady Holmesdale with a handsome gold bracelet.

He became the 3rd Earl Amherst in 1886, and at the Grand Festival of April 1896, H.R.H. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, who was the M.W. Grand Master from 1874 until he became King Edward VII in 1901, appointed the Earl Amherst to be the Deputy Grand Master, and in 1898 selected him to fill the Office of Pro Grand Master, the highest Office next to that of the M.W. Grand Master and an appointment which is only authorised in the case of the Grand Master being a Prince of the Royal Blood.

He continued to hold that Office under H.R.H. Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, until April, 1908 when he installed his successor, the 2nd Lord Ampthill, as the Pro Grand Master.

The Earl Amherst was appointed the Second Grand Principal of the Supreme Grand Chapter of England in 1896 and held the Office of Pro First Grand Principal from 1898 until 1908.

He was the Grand Superintendant of the Provincial Grand Chapter of Kent from 1877 until his death in 1910.