hope for change

Tunnel Entrance

All male members of the family had the first name William, although only the eldest would use it.

As a young man the Duke liked to go to the Opera, where he fell for Adelaide Kemble, a well-known opera singer. She refused his proposal and he was not known to be interested in any other woman.

From 1824 to 1834 he also held the rank of Captain in the Royal West India Rangers, on half pay. a sinecure, since this regiment had been disbanded in 1819. After leaving the army, he spent some time in Europe, his health being occasionally poor, including short term memory loss and sciatica.


On 27 March 1854 he succeeded his father as 5th Duke of Portland.

Although the title also gave him a seat in the House of Lords, it took him three years to take his seat, not taking the oaths until 5 June 1857. He showed little interest in taking an active role in politics, although he supported the Whigs and Robert Peel. From 1859 until his death he was also Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire.


The Duke had all the rooms of Welbeck Abbey stripped of furniture, including tapestries and portraits, which he had stored elsewhere. He occupied a suite of 4-5 rooms in the west wing of the mansion which were sparsely furnished. By 1879 the building was in a state of disrepair, with the Duke's rooms the only habitable ones.

All the rooms had been painted pink, with bare parquetry floors and no furniture apart from a commode in one corner.
The underground chambers - all of which were painted pink - included a great hall 160 ft (49 m) long and 63 ft (19 m) which was originally intended as a chapel,
but which was instead used as a picture gallery and occasionally as a ballroom. The ballroom reportedly had a hydraulic lift that could carry 20 guests from the surface and a ceiling that was painted as a giant sunset. However, the Duke never organized any dances in the ballroom.

The underground ballroom, which also doubled as the Duke's private roller rink was soon built. When it was completed it had become the largest unsupported room in Europe.


Other subterranean rooms included a 250 ft (76 m) long library, an observatory with a large glass roof, and a vast billiards-room.

In a time of abject poverty in Worksop, Mansfield and district, the Duke's preference for excavations and underground workings provided a living for 15,000 workmen for 18 years at an annual cost of £100,000.

He is not known to have kept company with any ladies, and his shyness and introverted personality increased over time.

He was also known as one of the finest judges of horseflesh at that time.



His reclusive lifestyle led to rumours that the Duke was disfigured, mad, or prone to wild orgies. However, contemporary witnesses and surviving photographs present him as a normal-looking man.

It is known that he used a tunnel for trips to London. Each Journey would begin at the stables, where four fine horses would draw the Duke's wagonnette along a tunnel for a mile and a quarter. A couple more miles by road to reach Worksop railway station where a special "flat wagon" was kept in sidings. The wagonnette would be rolled onto the flat and fastened down and then shunted for connection to be made on a London train. The Duke remained inside, with blinds drawn for the entire journey.


He ventured outside mainly by night, when he was preceded by a servant lady carrying a lantern 40 yards ahead of him. If he did walk out by day, the Duke wore two overcoats, an extremely tall hat, an extremely high collar, and carried a very large umbrella behind which he tried to hide if someone addressed him.

He insisted on a chicken roasting at all hours of the day, and the servants brought him his food on heated trucks that ran on rails through the underground tunnels.

He had been offered the Order of the Garter, but declined it and refused it again in 1877.

 In 1897 a widow, Anna Maria Druce, claimed that the Duke had led a double life as her father-in-law, a London upholsterer by the name of Thomas Charles Druce, who had supposedly died in 1864. The widow claimed that the Duke had faked the death of his alter ego Druce to return to a secluded aristocratic life and that therefore her son was heir to the Portland estate. However, her application to have Druce's grave in Highgate Cemetery opened to show that the coffin buried in it was in fact empty and weighted with lead was blocked by Druce's executor and the case became the subject of continuing and unsuccessful legal proceedings.
A company was set up to support the case with a capital of over £30,000 subscribed by the public in expectation of huge profits.


Evidence of a fake burial was given by a witness named Robert C. Caldwell of New York and others, and it was eventually agreed that Druce's grave should be opened. This was done on 30 December 1907 and Druce's body was found present and successfully identified. Two witnesses were charged with perjury, and another witness and Anna Maria were confined to asylums.