Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of DevonshireThough undoubtedly with the grand manner, the 11th Duke of Devonshire, who has died aged 84, was a rather mild Conservative (and sometime Social Democrat) politician and a modern, if diffident, entrepreneur, who helped to turn Chatsworth House, his magnificent stately home in Derbyshire with its 12,000-acre estate, into a public resource, without compromising its dignity or losing it as a family home.
It would be many years before he was no longer frightened of being thought a dotty duke, after he installed an effigy of Elvis Presley, which played Rock Around The Clock when the telephone rang, claiming it to be his favourite possession.
Apart from Chatsworth House, the family owns Lismore Castle in Co Waterford, extensive tracts of land in Yorkshire and around Eastbourne, two hotels and one of the most valuable private art collections in the world.
Throughout his life he struggled with the weight of his inheritance, but with some shrewd business moves he eventually emerged from the red and turned Chatsworth into the viable commercial public amenity that it is today. He even managed to broker a deal with the Peak National Park Authority in 1991 to open up 1,200 acres of the estate to ramblers. In doing so, however, he was still able to maintain the estate's integrity and keep it as the family home.
In many ways this onerous responsibility had all been thrust upon him without warning. As the younger son of the 10th Duke, he was not the one being primed to take over the mantle. But his elder brother, William, was killed in the second World War, leaving Andrew as the heir to the title and estates.
(William's young widow was Kathleen Kennedy, younger sister of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Much to the chagrin of her father, staunch Catholic Joe Kennedy, Kathleen took up with Protestant divorcee Earl Fitzwilliam who then owned the picturesque Coolattin estate in Co Wicklow. Kathleen and Fitzwilliam were killed in a plane crash in 1948 on their way to persuade her father not to cut her out of the Kennedy fortune.)
Andrew Devonshire had a conventional upbringing for his class. Schooled at Eton and Trinity College Cambridge, he served in the Coldstream Guards and won the Military Cross for his part in the Italian campaign of the second World War.
He married Deborah Vivian Freeman-Mitford, one of the glitteringly famous Mitford girls, in 1941.
Even standing as a Conservative candidate at Chesterfield, in 1945 and 1950, was the sort of thing that might have been expected of such a young man, though his none too exciting political career did not begin in earnest until he was the 11th Duke.
He was parliamentary under-secretary for Commonwealth relations from 1960 to 1962, minister of state at the Commonwealth Relations Office from 1962 to 1964, and for colonial affairs from 1963 to 1964. His appointments, he once said, were "the greatest act of nepotism ever". His uncle, Harold Macmillan, was then prime minister.
He later joined the Social Democratic Party, although he sat as a cross-bencher in his rare appearances in the Lords.
As a young man, Devonshire's ducal manner could sometimes seem abrasive. Labour MP Dennis Skinner attacked him in the House of Commons in 1974 because he allegedly was "very much in charge" of Eastbourne Borough Council. They were joint owners, with the Chatsworth Trustees, of land which had been sold for housing in 1972. The council, claimed Skinner, was very much in the duke's pocket over planning matters.
And, even in later years, he was involved in disputes with ramblers who used the paths near his home.
But by the time he had grown into the grand old man of stately homes, the aristocrats' aristocrat and a man who could be humorously self-deprecating about himself, even the ramblers had been disarmed.
He signed an agreement in 1991 with the Peak National Park Authority which opened up 1,300 acres of his estate to walkers. He said that everyone was "welcome in my back garden".
The fact that he was a walker himself, despite a painful hip condition, made for further public sympathy; the fact that he had been a president of the Polite Society, and invariably followed its rules, was also an asset.
"The key to my life was the army," he said. "It turned me from a filthy, useless boy into something vaguely approaching a man. All Cavendishes are lazy by nature, and my entire life has been a battle against indolence.
"When you consider my advantages - there probably isn't anybody more fortunate in the world - I've achieved absolutely nothing. It's quite shaming."
He is likely to go down in history as an English gentleman in every sense of the term.
Throughout his life, he was a regular visitor to Ireland, although it had been more than five years since he last spent time at Lismore.
But the Cavendish family has had a long association with that part of Co Waterford - Lismore Castle has been in the family since 1753 following the marriage of the 4th Duke to Lady Charlotte Boyle - and it is said that during Famine times no one went hungry in Lismore as the then Duke of Devonshire made sure there was food for all.
"To me, he was the chief representative of a family that has been highly supportive of our cathedral and has been of truly great consequence to the town of Lismore," said the Very Rev William Beare, Dean of Lismore.
The Duke's son, Lord Hartington, who will now become the 12th Duke, spent much of his childhood in and around Lismore and his close friend, Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, was present for his 60th birthday party in Lismore Castle in March.
"The Cavendish family is looked upon by the people of Lismore as belonging here. They are well liked and always welcomed," said Dean Beare.
In the past Lord Hartington's son, Lord Burlington, has brought motley crews of cricketers over to fulfil an old fixture against Lismore Cricket Club.
Later this summer there will be a memorial service for the duke in St Carthage's Cathedral, Lismore, which will be attended by several members of the Cavendish family.
"It will be an opportunity for the people of Lismore to acknowledge what the duke did for the town," said the dean.
In his later life the duke kept up his interest in horseracing, art and hill walking and was a real aristocrats' aristocrat, a man with a self-deprecating humour who stood firm to the traditions of his upbringing.
When asked, some years ago, by a worker on the estate if he planned to retire, his reply was typical: "I've never worked a day in my life, so how can I retire?"
He is survived by his wife, the Duchess of Devonshire, his son, the Marquess of Hartington, his two daughters, eight grandchildren (including the model, Stella Tennant) and four great-grandchildren.
Andrew Robert Buxton Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire: born January 2nd, 1920; died May 3rd, 2004