Alexander Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport (British Army officer)

He was the eldest and only surviving son and heir of Samuel Hood, 2nd Baron Bridport (1788–1868) of Redlynch in Wiltshire and of Cricket St Thomas in Wiltshire, a younger grandson of Admiral Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood (1724–1816) of Catherington in Hampshire, elder brother of Admiral Alexander Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport, 1st Baron Bridport (1726–1814), of Cricket St Thomas. His father Samuel was the heir to the estates his childless great-uncle Alexander Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport, and by special remainder to his title Baron Bridport in the Peerage of Ireland.

His mother was Charlotte Hood, 3rd Duchess of Bronte (1787–1873), only child of Rev. William Nelson, 1st Earl Nelson, 2nd Duke of Bronte (1757–1835) of Standlynch in Wiltshire, elder brother and heir of the great Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte (1758–1805). Although his mother Charlotte had inherited her father's Sicilian dukedom, his British titles descended by special remainder, together with his British estates, to his nephew Thomas Bolton (1786–1835), who having assumed the surname "Nelson" in accordance with the terms of the bequest became Thomas Nelson, 2nd Earl Nelson.

In 1868 he succeeded his father as 3rd Baron Bridport and six months later in the same year the viscountcy held by his great-great-uncle was revived when he was created Viscount Bridport, "of Cricket St Thomas in the County of Somerset and of Bronte in the Kingdom of Italy". In 1873 he also succeeded his mother as 4th Duke of Bronte.

In the 1883 publication The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland his estate is listed as 5,512 acres (3,103 in Somerset, 2,356 in Dorset and 53 in Devon) valued at £8,098 per annum.[3] His Bronte estate in Sicily was about 25,000 hectares[4] (61,774 acres), with considerable feudal powers.

In 1898, six years before his death, he sold his heavily mortgaged seat and estate at Cricket St Thomas in Somerset to the chocolate manufacturer Francis Fry (d.1918).[5] The estate had been purchased in 1775 by the 1st Viscount Bridport who in 1786 had rebuilt the house to the designs of the architect Sir John Soane (1753–1837).

In 1864, during the lifetime of his mother the 3rd Duchess of Bronte, he made a short visit, accompanied by his wife and sons Arthur and William, to her Sicilian estate comprising the Duchy of Bronte, created for Admiral Lord Nelson in 1799 by King King Ferdinand III of Sicily. Although the Admiral had been enthusiastic about his new duchy and had ordered the monastic buildings which formed its seat to be restored and embellished at his great cost, neither he nor his brother and heir the 2nd Duke ever set foot on the property, the first to have done so having been the 3rd Duchess, who paid a short visit in the 1830s or 1840s, but was unfavourably impressed with the primitive nature of the countryside and the entire absence of roads on the estate which necessitated travel by mule litter. The estate was run by a local agent and by correspondence. He made a second visit in Autumn 1868, again during the lifetime of his mother, accompanied by his daughter Adelaide and his 14-year-old son Alexander, who took an instant liking to it and whom he later appointed as 5th Duke.[6]

Arms of Hill, Marquess of Downshire: Sable, on a fess argent between three leopards passant guardant or spotted of the field as many escallops gules

In 1838 he married Lady Mary Penelope Hill (1817-1884, died at 12 Wimpole Street, London), a daughter of Arthur Hill, 3rd Marquess of Downshire, by whom he had issue six sons and four daughters as follows:

He died in June 1904, aged 89, at Royal Lodge, Windsor, having survived his wife by twenty years. He was buried in the churchyard of Cricket St Thomas, next to the church, where his monument survives, comprising a lifesize white marble standing figure of St Michael the Archangel. A note in the church states that for many years the statue was laid flat, as the white figure at night scared too many locals.[11] He was succeeded in his British titles by his eldest son Arthur Wellington Alexander Nelson Hood, 2nd Viscount Bridport (1839–1924) and was succeeded in his Sicilian dukedom by his 4th son Hon. Sir Alexander Nelson Hood, 5th Duke of Bronte (1854–1937).

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• www.thepeerage.com

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Viscount Bridport