The 1st Earl Of Dudley

The early Dudleys did not have much luck in the scramble for land in the sixteenth century. The 3rd Baron Dudley lost Dudley Castle and relied on charity from friends having suffered at the hands of usurers, which led to him being styled 'Lord Quondam'. Queen Mary restored the castle and the valuables to the family. By the nineteenth century, the Dudley estates ran to around 25,554 acres, not much by contemporary standards. But there were huge coal seams around Birmingham, vital to the Industrial Revolution and the prop for the Dudley fortune.

William Ward, the 11th Lord Dudley was born in 1817, just as the demand for coal was taking off. He succeeded his father to the baronetcy in 1835, and was raised to the earldom of Dudley in 1860.

At his death in 1885, he left £1m in personal assets. Adding in his land and coal assets gives a £4.72m fortune representing around 0.43% of the net national income. Today's equivalent would be over £4.7bn.