William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp

William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp KG, KCMG, PC (1872–1938), was a British Liberal politician. He was Governor of New South Wales between 1899 and 1901, a member of the government under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and H H Asquith between 1905 and 1915, and leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords between 1924 and 1931. When political enemies threatened to make public his homosexuality he resigned from office to go into exile. Lord Beauchamp is generally supposed to have been the model for Lord Marchmain in Evelyn Waugh's novel, Brideshead Revisited.