Item 1968-004/001/(1)/3 - Front of envelope autographed by Philip Henry Stanhope, earl, addressed to George Burns : p. 5v

Philip Henry Stanhope, 4th Earl Stanhope (7 December 1781 – 2 March 1855) was an English aristocrat and politician. He sat in Parliament as a Whig for Wendover from 1806 to 1807, Hull from 1807 to 1812, and Midhurst from 1812 until his succession to the peerage on 15 December 1816. Sharing his father's (Charles Stanhope's) scientific interest, he was elected F.R.S. (Fellow of the Royal Society) on January 8, 1807, and was a president of the Medico-Botanical Society; he furthermore was a vice-president of the Society of Arts. In 1831 Stanhope took an interest in Kaspar Hauser, [1812?]-1833, a German youth who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell. Stanhope took custody of Hauser in 1831 and spent a great deal of money attempting to clarify Hauser's origin. By January 1832 Stanhope left Hauser for good and after Hauser's death, Stanhope published a book in which he presented all known evidence against Hauser's origins and story. Stanhope died in 1855 and was succeeded by his son Philip Henry Stanhope, fifth Earl Stanhope (1805–1875).