Ancaster was the eldest son of Gilbert Henry Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 1st Earl of Ancaster, and Lady Evelyn Elizabeth Gordon, daughter of Charles Gordon, 10th Marquess of Huntly. He was born in London and educated at Lambrook preparatory school, Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge.
Eton College; Trinity College.
In 1894 he was elected to Parliament for the Horncastle Division of Lincolnshire, a seat he held until shortly after the December 1910 general election, when he succeeded his father as second Earl of Ancaster and entered the House of Lords. Ancaster later held office as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries under David Lloyd George from 1921 to 1922 and under Andrew Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin from 1922 to 1924. Apart from his parliamentary political career he was also Lord Lieutenant of Rutland from 1921 to 1951, Chairman of Rutland County Council from 1922 to 1937, Doctor of Laws for the county of Perthshire and Justice of the Peace for Lincolnshire, where he was Chairman of the Kesteven Quarter Sessions from 1911 to 1937.
He was Joint Lord Great Chamberlain between 1910 and 1951.
He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in 1937. During the Second Boer War he was appointed an honorary Major of the Leicestershire Imperial Yeomanry, but was in June 1901 transferred to become Captain of the Lincolnshire Imperial Yeomanry, rising to Lieutenant-Colonel.
Lord Aveland married Eloise Lawrence Breese, daughter of William Lawrence Breese, in 1905.
25th United Kingdom Parliament. 26th United Kingdom Parliament. 27th United Kingdom Parliament.
28th United Kingdom Parliament.
29th United Kingdom Parliament. 30th United Kingdom Parliament.
