| Honorific Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Viscount Hereford | |
| Birth Date: | 3 January 1843 |
| Birth Place: | Mayfair, London |
| Death Place: | Roehampton, London |
| Alma Mater: | Eton College Sandhurst |
| Known For: | Premier Viscount of England Father of the House of Lords |
| Nationality: | British |
Robert Devereux, 16th Viscount Hereford (3 January 1843 – 27 March 1930) was an English peer. At age 12, he succeeded his father in the oldest extant viscountcy in the Peerage of England, becoming the Premier Viscount of England.[1]
Lord Hereford was born at 12, Portland Place, Mayfair, the eldest son of Rev. Robert Devereux, 15th Viscount Hereford and Emma Jemima Ravenscrot, daughter of daughter of George Ravenscrot. His father died in 1855. In 1857, his mother remarried Col. John Ireland Blackburne.[2]
He was educated at Eton beginning in 1852 and Sandhurst. He was a JP and DL for Breconshire, a JP for Herefordshire and Radnorshire, and a county alderman for Monmouthshire.
On 16 July 1863, Lord Hereford married the Hon. Mary Anna Morgan, youngest daughter of Charles Morgan, 1st Baron Tredegar. They had one son and five daughters.[2]
The family resided at the family seat of Tregoyd House in Powys until it burned down in 1900, at which point they moved to Ashford Hall in Ashford Bowdler, Shropshire. Tregoyd was rebuilt and became the residence of their only son.[3]
Their fourth daughter, Sybil, died in 1892, aged 19, of typhoid fever.[4] Lady Hereford died on 14 August 1924 at Ashford Hall, five weeks after the death of their eldest daughter.[3]
On 13 March 1830, upon the death of George Coventry, 9th Earl of Coventry, Lord Hereford succeeded as Father of the House of Lords, having been a peer for 74 years and seven months. He died two weeks later at the Priory nursing home.[1] [5]
| Crest: | Out of a Ducal Coronet Or a Talbot's Head Argent eared Gules |
| Coronet: | A Coronet of a Viscount |
| Escutcheon: | Argent a Fess Gules in chief three Torteaux |
| Supporters: | Dexter: a Talbot Argent eared Gules ducally gorged of the last; Sinister: a Reindeer proper horned ducally gorged and lined Or |
| Motto: | Virtutis Comes Invidia |