Robert Edgcumbe, 8th Earl of Mount Edgcumbe


Robert Charles Edgcumbe, 8th Earl of Mount Edgcumbe is a New Zealand-British peer.
Edgcumbe is the son of Meta Lhoyer and George Aubrey Valletort Edgcumbe. He married Joan Ivy Wall, daughter of Ernest Wall in 1960 and together they had five daughters. They divorced in 1988. The Earl now lives with Beryl Cottrell, from Millbrook. He succeeded to his titles in 1982. He was an estate manager in New Zealand. Members of the Edgcumbe family have lived in New Zealand since the 1860s.
The earl and his immediate predecessor both moved to Cornwall on succeeding to the title. The earl's family live in both New Zealand and Cornwall, where he lives in Empacombe House, Cornwall. The heir to the earldom, his nephew Douglas George Valletort Edgcumbe, lives in New Zealand; he is the son of Marian and Chris Mortimer Edgcumbe.

Estate

The former home of the Edgcumbe family was Mount Edgcumbe House, Cornwall, overlooking Plymouth Sound. An earlier family seat was Cotehele, also in Cornwall. The family has owned the estate from 1354, when William de Eggecomb married Hillaria, daughter and heiress of William de Cotehele. In 1872 the Earl of Edgcumbe was the sixth largest landowner in Cornwall with.
Mount Edgcumbe house was severely damaged by incendiary bombs in 1941. It was rebuilt for the sixth earl, and was lived in by the Earls of Mount Edgcumbe until 1987.