John Albert William Spencer-Churchill, 10th Duke of Marlborough (18 September 1897 – 11 March 1972) was the elder son of Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough and his first wife, the former Consuelo Vanderbilt, the American railroad heiress. Before inheriting the dukedom in 1934 he was a Lt. Colonel in the Life Guards. He was Mayor of Woodstock from 1937 to 1942. The 10th Duke of Marlborough married, as his first wife, the Hon. Alexandra Mary Cadogan (1900-1961) in 1920. She was a daughter of Henry Cadogan, Viscount Chelsea, the son and heir of George Henry Cadogan, 5th Earl Cadogan. They had two sons and three daughters:
- Lady Sarah Consuelo Spencer-Churchill (1921-2000; married and divorced Edwin Russell, Guys Burgos, and Theo Roubanis)
- Lady Caroline Spencer-Churchill (1923-1992; married Maj. Charles Huguenot Waterhouse)
- John George Vanderbilt Henry Spencer-Churchill, 11th Duke of Marlborough (b. 1926)
- Lady Rosemary Mildred Spencer-Churchill (b. 1929; lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth II; married Charles Robert Muir)
- Lord Charles George William Colin Spencer-Churchill (b. 1940; married Gillian Spreckles Fuller and Elizabeth Jane Wyndham, a great-niece of the interior decorator Nancy Lancaster)
Six weeks before his death in 1972, the duke married, as his second wife, (Frances) Laura Canfield (1915-1990), the widow of the American publishing heir Michael Temple Canfield (whose first wife had been Caroline Lee Bouvier, the sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis). A granddaughter of the 11 Earl of Wemyss and a sister-in-law of the novelist Ian Fleming, Laura Canfield was previously married to and divorced from the 2nd Viscount Long and the 2nd Earl of Dudley. The 10th duke was succeeded by his son John Spencer-Churchill, Marquess of Blandford. He is buried in the vault beneath the chapel of his former ancestral home Blenheim Palace.
| Peerage of England | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Charles Spencer-Churchill |
Duke of Marlborough 1934–1972 |
Succeeded by John Spencer-Churchill |
