George Annesley, 2nd Earl of Mountnorris FRS (4 December 1770 – 23 July 1844), styled Viscount Valentia between 1793 and 1816, was a British peer and politician.

Background

Mountnorris was the son of Arthur Annesley, 1st Earl of Mountnorris

Arthur Annesley, 1st Earl of Mountnorris

Arthur Annesley, 1st Earl of Mountnorris FRS was an Irish peer.He was the son of Richard Annesley, 6th Earl of Anglesey, and the Countess Juliana Donovan, who belonged to the junior sept of the O'Donovans of Clan Loughlin, the Donovans of Ballymore in County Wexford...

, and the Hon. Lucy, daughter of George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton

George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton

George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton PC , known as Sir George Lyttelton, Bt between 1751 and 1756, was a British politician and statesman and a patron of the arts.-Background and education:...

.

Political career

Mountnorris sat as Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Yarmouth

Yarmouth (Isle of Wight) (UK Parliament constituency)

Yarmouth was a borough constituency of the House of Commons of England then of the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832...

 from 1808 to 1810.

Trip to India

In 1802 Henry Salt

Henry Salt

Henry Salt may refer to:*Henry Stephens Salt , English writer, campaigner for social reforms, and animal rights advocate*Henry Salt...

 was appointed secretary and draughtsman to George Annesley, Viscount Valentia

Viscount Valentia

Viscount Valentia is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It has been created twice. The first creation came in 1621 for Henry Power. A year later, his kinsman Sir Francis Annesley, 1st Baronet, was given a "reversionary grant" of the viscountcy, which stated that on Power's death Annesley would be...

. They started on an eastern tour, traveling to India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 via the Cape. Salt explored the Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

 area, and in 1805 visited the Ethiopian highlands

Ethiopian Highlands

The Ethiopian Highlands are a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia, Eritrea , and northern Somalia in the Horn of Africa...

. He returned to England in 1806. Salt's paintings from the trip were used to the Lord Valentia's Voyages and Travels to India, published in 1809.

Family

Lord Mountnorris married Lady Anne, daughter of William Courtenay, 2nd Viscount Courtenay, in 1790. She died in January 1835, aged 60. Lord Mountnorris died in July 1844, aged 73. He had no surviving male issue and on his death the earldom of Mountnorris became extinct, while he was succeeded in the baronetcy of Newport-Pagnell, the barony of Mountnorris and the viscountcy of Valentia by his distant relative, Arthur Annesley, 10th Viscount Valentia.