The title Duke of Sutherland was created for George Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford, in 1833.
The subsidiary titles of the Duke of Sutherland are: Marquess of Stafford (created 1786), Earl Gower (1746), Earl of Ellesmere (1846), Viscount Trentham, of Trentham in the County of Stafford (1746), Viscount Brackley, of Brackley in the County of Northampton (1846), and Baron Gower, of Sittenham in the County of York (1703). The Marquessate of Stafford, the Earldom of Gower and the Viscounty of Trentham are in the Peerage of Great Britain, the Dukedom, the Earldom of Ellesmere and the Viscounty of Brackley in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, and the Barony of Gower in the Peerage of England.
The title united with the ancient title of Earl of Sutherland after the first Duke and his wife, the holder of the Earldom, died, and the titles were inherited by the second Duke. The titles separated at the death of the fifth Duke; the Earldom could be inherited by his granddaughter, but the Dukedom could only pass to males.
This earl's daughter Elizabeth (1765-1839) claimed the peerage, and although her title thereto was contested by Sir Robert Gordon, Bart., a descendant of the first Gordon earl, it was confirmed by the House of Lords in 1771.
Established in the possession of the title and the vast estates of the earldom, the countess of Sutherland was married in 1785 to George Granville Leveson-Gower (1758-1833), who succeeded his father as second marquess of Stafford in 1803.
The 2nd duke's wife, Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana (1806-1868), a daughter of George Howard, 6th earl of Carlisle, was one of Queen Victoria's most intimate friends.
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