Michael Brudenell-Bruce, 8th Marquess of Ailesbury

Michael Sydney Cedric Brudenell-Bruce, 8th Marquess of Ailesbury (31 March 1926 – 12 May 2024), styled Viscount Savernake until 1974, was a British peer.

Although since the death of James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan that Earldom has been the senior subsidiary title of the Marquesses of Ailesbury, the future 8th Marquess did not take it on the death of his grandfather the 6th Marquess in 1961 and remained known as Viscount Savernake, as he had been since birth.

Biography
The Marquess was born the son of Cedric Brudenell-Bruce, 7th Marquess of Ailesbury. He attended Eton College before serving in the Royal Horse Guards. He received an emergency commission as a second lieutenant on 12 August 1945, only three weeks before the end of the Second World War. He was promoted to lieutenant on 1 September 1946, and entered the reserves with the same rank on 1 September 1949, with the honorary rank of captain. He relinquished his reserve commission on 1 July 1959, retaining the honorary rank of captain.

In 1954, he became a member of the London Stock Exchange. He joined the stockbrokers Bragg, Stockdale, Hall & Co, founded in 1819, in the City of London, which merged with Fiske & Co in 1975 and he became a partner of Fiske. He became a director of Fiske & Co when it became a limited company, and remained so when it went public as Fiske plc.

On 15 July 1974, he succeeded his father as 8th Marquess upon his death.

The family seat was Tottenham House, in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire, but they ceased to live there in 1946 when it became Hawtreys school. The Marquess owned Avebury Manor, also in Wiltshire, from 1976 to 1981.

Death
On 12 May 2024, The 8th Marquess of Ailesbury died after falling from a window at his home in Shepherd's Bush area of London, at the age of 98. His partner told police that he had been attempting to let his cat out when he accidentally fell, but some family members publicly disputed this, pending an inquest.

Marriages and issue
The Marquess was married three times. His first wife, Edwina Sylvia de Winton-Wills (1933–2023), was the daughter of Lt. Col. Sir Ernest Edward de Winton-Wills, 4th Baronet Wills of Hazelwood, of the W.D. & H.O. Wills tobacco company, by his wife Sylvia Margaret Ogden. They were married on 17 March 1952 and were divorced in 1961. They had three children:
 * David Brudenell-Bruce, 9th Marquess of Ailesbury (born 1952)
 * Lady Sylvia Davina Brudenell-Bruce (born 1954) who married Peter M. Gould in 1987.
 * Lady Carina Doune Brudenell-Bruce (born 1956) who married Anthony Le Brun on 26 June 1982.

Edwina married secondly Major Christopher Bonn with whom she had four further children.

On 10 July 1963, the Marquess married a second time, to Juliet Adrienne Lethbridge Kingsford, daughter of Edward Hilary Lethbridge Kingsford. The couple divorced in 1974 after having two children:
 * Lady Louise Brudenell-Bruce (born 1964), and
 * Lady Kathryn Juliet Brudenell-Bruce (born 1965).

On 18 September 1974, shortly after his second divorce, he married for the third time. The bride, Caroline Elizabeth Wethered, was the daughter of Commander Owen Francis MacTier Wethered. They had no children, and the couple divorced in 1992. At the time of his death, he had lived with Teresa Marshall de Paoli for over 30 years.