Reginald Windsor Sackville. 1817 – 1896. 7th Earl De La Warr. Reginald Windsor Sackville, third son of the 5th Earl De La Warr and Elizabeth, daughter of the 3rd Duke of Dorset, was born in London on the 21 February 1817. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford (BA 1838 and MA 1840). He entered the Church – was Rector of Withyham from 1841 to 1865 and Chaplin to Queen Victoria from 1846 to 1865 before unexpectedly succeeding to the title as 7th Earl on the death of his brother in 1873. He arranged by Royal Licence to drop West from the family name.
On the 7th May, 1867 he married Constance Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Dundas Cochrane-Baillie, the first Lord Lamington. They had two sons. The elder, Lionel Charles Cranfield Sackville (Viscount Cantelupe), born in 1868, married Dorothy Postle Heseltine on 24 June 1890. Without issue, he was drowned aged only 22 years five months later, when his yacht ‘Urania’ foundered in a bad storm. The second son, Gilbert George Reginald Sackville, consequently took the courtesy title of Viscount Cantelupe with the right of succession. The 7th Earl advanced Bexhill development by engaging the services of John William Webb, a South London builder. The aim of the 7th Earl, followed by his son Gilbert, was to make Bexhill an exclusive resort. Nearly all seafront hotels were built within 12 years on De La Warr property.