Captain Sir William Charles Wentworth-FitzWilliam GCVO

Royal Victorian Order

The Royal Victorian Order is a dynastic order of knighthood and a house order of chivalry recognising distinguished personal service to the order's Sovereign, the reigning monarch of the Commonwealth realms, any members of her family, or any of her viceroys...

 (31 March 1848–17 April 1925) was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 courtier

Courtier

A courtier is a person who is often in attendance at the court of a king or other royal personage. Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...

.

The fourth son of William Wentworth-FitzWilliam, 6th Earl FitzWilliam

William Wentworth-FitzWilliam, 6th Earl FitzWilliam

William Thomas Spencer Wentworth-FitzWilliam, 6th Earl FitzWilliam, KG was a British peer and Liberal politician....

, he was educated at Eton

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 and Magdalene College, Cambridge

Magdalene College, Cambridge

Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene...

. In 1870 he purchased a Cornetcy in the Royal Horse Guards

Royal Horse Guards

The Royal Horse Guards was a cavalry regiment of the British Army, part of the Household Cavalry.Founded August 1650 in Newcastle Upon Tyne by Sir Arthur Haselrig on the orders of Oliver Cromwell as the Regiment of Cuirassiers, the regiment became the Earl of Oxford's Regiment during the reign of...

. He was promoted Lieutenant

Lieutenant

A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

 in 1871 and Captain

Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)

Captain is a junior officer rank of the British Army and Royal Marines. It ranks above Lieutenant and below Major and has a NATO ranking code of OF-2. The rank is equivalent to a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and to a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force...

 in 1878.

From 1880 to 1882 he was ADC

Aide-de-camp

An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...

 to Lord Ripon

George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon

George Frederick Samuel Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon KG, GCSI, CIE, PC , known as Viscount Goderich from 1833 to 1859 and as the Earl de Grey and Ripon from 1859 to 1871, was a British politician who served in every Liberal cabinet from 1861 until his death forty-eight years later.-Background...

 as Viceroy of India. He retired from the Army in 1883. An expert on horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s, in 1901 he was appointed Extra Equerry and Master of the Stables to the Prince of Wales

Prince of Wales

Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...

. On the latter's accession as King George V

George V of the United Kingdom

George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....

 in 1910 he was promoted to Crown Equerry

Crown Equerry

The Crown Equerry is the operational head of the Royal Mews of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. He is responsible for the provision of vehicular transport for the Sovereign, both cars and horse-drawn carriages...

 and Secretary to the Master of the Horse

Master of the Horse

The Master of the Horse was a position of varying importance in several European nations.-Magister Equitum :...

, a post he held until his retirement in 1924.

He was appointed Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in 1910, Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) in 1911, and Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) in the 1921 New Year Honours.