Earl of Brecknock
(1840-1872)
16 May 1861

Volume 2, page 318, sitting number 2563.

The Earl of Brecknock is a courtesy title held by the eldest son of the Marquess Camden.

John Charles Pratt was born on 30 June 1840 in Belgrave Square, London. He was the son of Sir George Charles Pratt, 2nd Marquess Camden and Harriet née Murray, eldest daughter of the Bishop of Rochester. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1860 with a Master of Arts (MA). He gained the rank of Major in the service of the West Kent Yeomanry Cavalry. He sat briefly as a Member of Parliament (Liberal) for Brecon between February 1866 and 6 August 1866, when he succeeded his father and took his seat in the House of Lords as the 3rd Marquess Camden.

On 12 July 1866 at St James’s, Piccadilly, he married Lady Clementine Augusta Spencer-Churchill, daughter of George Spencer-Churchill, 6th Duke of Marlborough. Their marriaged produced one daughter, born in 1870, and one son, born on 8 January 1872.

His residences were Bayham Abbey in Kent, Wilderness Park at Sevenoaks, and 96 Eaton Square, London.

He died on 4 May 1872, at the age of only 31, at 96 Eaton Square, London. On his early death the titles passed to his three-month old son, the fourth Marquess. According to one report (Bradford Daily Telegraph, 6 May 1872), '[h]e was seized with a fit on Thursday, and never rallied.' 

'Much genuine sorrow was caused in the neighbourhood by the receipt of the tidings on Saturday of the decease in the prime of life of the Marquess Camden. This event is rendered the more painful from the recent birth of a son and heir (which appeared to exert a happy influence upon the spirits and health of the nobel Marquess) and the near completion of a new and commodious mansion &c., at Bayham, in which it was anticipated that many years of domestic happiness and social usefulness would be enjoyed. The character of the noble Marquess was adorned with qualities which won the esteem and confidence of all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. In this neighbourhood he was well-known and respected in the various relationships of landlord, employer of labour, and patron of all movements of public utility, and more especially of all efforts to ameliorate the condition - personal, domestic, and social - of the poor' (Kentish Independent, 11 May 1872).