Researching Lord Stuart

In 1820, he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford.

On 20 July 1824, he married Princess Christine Bonaparte (1798–1847), daughter of Lucien Bonaparte by his first wife, Christine Boyer, and sister of the Princess Gabrielli. They had one son, Paul Amadeus Francis Coutts Stuart, who died unmarried in 1889.

He was a member of the Whittington Club and the vice-president (and later the president) of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland.

A Whig and subsequently Liberal, he was a passionate advocate of Polish independence, and sympathetic in general to the cause of the Eastern European peoples against Russia. He received Lajos Kossuth in England after his exile from Hungary. In the election of 1857, Richard Cobden told an anecdote referring to this event:

I will tell you what happened with my knowledge -- it is no breach of confidence to say it. When that illustrious Hungarian was expected in England, after his imprisonment in Turkey, my lamented friend Lord Dudley Stuart -- whose devotion to the cause of these foreign refugees was as unbounded as it was sincere – went down to Southampton to meet Kossuth, and receive him on his arrival. Having to wait a day or two there, and being in the neighbourhood of Broadlands, where Lord Palmerston lives, he went there and saw the noble lord, and received from him a request to bring Kossuth over to Broadlands, to see him. I remember a letter from Lord Dudley Stuart, announcing to me this piece of intelligence with the greatest glee. He was delighted at the opportunity of taking Kossuth over to the Lord Palmerston; and as soon as he arrived he announced to him the pleasing information. To his astonishment he found Kossuth would not accept it. He would not go near Lord Palmerston -- (cheers); and I have got a letter from Lord Dudley Stuart, asking me to use all my influence with Kossuth to induce him to go and call upon Lord Palmerston. He would not do it; and my answer was this, "You may depend upon it, Kossuth knows a great deal more about Lord Palmerston than you do." (Laughter).

A critic of the Metropolitan Police, he suggested a reduction of the strength of the force in 1853.

Stuart was the second son of John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute, son of Prime Minister John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute. His mother was the Honourable Charlotte Jane, daughter of Herbert Windsor, 2nd Viscount Windsor.

Stuart was elected to the House of Commons in February 1794, succeeding his deceased elder brother Lord Mount Stuart as the member for Cardiff Boroughs, but was not allowed to take his seat in Parliament until his twenty-first birthday in June that year. He continued to represent the constituency until 1802, when he was replaced by his younger brother Lord William Stuart. On the latter's death, Stuart was elected to resume his representation on 7 November 1814, holding the seat until 23 June 1818. He was then replaced by another member of the family, his nephew Lord Patrick Crichton-Stuart.

Apart from his political career he served in the British Army. He was commissioned into the 7th Foot, but transferred to an Independent Company as a Lieutenant in 1791. He later purchased a Captaincy in the 1st Foot Guards, and in 1797 purchased a Majority in the 66th Foot and later the same year the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the 21st Foot. In 1802 he transferred to the 22nd Foot and in 1805 he was promoted Brevet Colonel.

Stuart never married. He died in August 1842 at Walworth, aged 69, and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.