| Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Earl of Erroll | |
| Honorific-Suffix: | KT GCH PC |
| Order1: | Lord Steward of the Household |
| Term Start1: | 21 November 1839 |
| Term End1: | 30 August 1841 |
| Monarch1: | Victoria |
| Primeminister1: | The Viscount Melbourne |
| Predecessor1: | The Duke of Argyll |
| Successor1: | The Earl of Liverpool |
| Birth Date: | 21 February 1801 |
| Death Place: | London, England |
| Nationality: | British |
| Party: | Whig |
| Children: | 5, including William Hay, 19th Earl of Erroll, Agnes Duff, Countess Fife |
| Parents: | William Hay, 17th Earl of Erroll Alice Eliot |
William George Hay, 18th Earl of Erroll, KT, GCH, PC (21 February 1801 – 19 April 1846), styled Lord Hay between 1815 and 1819, was a Scottish peer and politician.[1]
Erroll was the son of William Hay, 17th Earl of Erroll, and his wife Alice (née Eliot). His paternal grandfather was James Hay, 15th Earl of Erroll, son of William Boyd, 4th Earl of Kilmarnock (who was attainted with his titles forfeited in 1746). He became heir apparent to the earldom in 1815 on the death of his elder brother, Lord Hay, who was killed during the Waterloo Campaign. He was educated at Eton.[2]
Erroll succeeded his father in the earldom in 1819, aged 18. In 1823 he was elected a Scottish representative peer and took his seat in the House of Lords. He was Master of the Horse to Queen Adelaide from 1830 to 1834. In 1831 he was sworn of the Privy Council and created Baron Kilmarnock, of Kilmarnock in the County of Ayr, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, a revival of the Kilmarnock title held by his great-grandfather. When the Whigs came to power under Lord Melbourne in 1835, Erroll was appointed Master of the Buckhounds. In 1839 he was promoted to Lord Steward of the Household on the decease of the Duke of Argyll, a post he held until the administration fell in 1841.
Apart from his political career Lord Erroll was also Knight Marischal of Scotland from 1832 to 1846,[3] [4] and Lord-Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire from 1836 to 1846.[5]
Lord Erroll married Lady Elizabeth FitzClarence, the illegitimate daughter of King William IV and Dorothy Jordan, on 4 December 1820. They were the parents of four children:[6]
Lord Erroll died in London in April 1846, aged 45, and was succeeded by his eldest son, William. The Countess of Erroll died in January 1856, aged 54.
Lord Erroll was the chief organiser of the Dublin Bay regatta held in Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire) in 1828.[8]