Spencer "Spenny" Douglas David Compton, 7th Marquess of Northampton (born 2 April 1946) is a British peer.
He was listed as having properties worth £120 million in the 2011 Estates Gazette Rich List.[1] In the Sunday Times Rich List 2017, ranking the wealthiest people in the UK, he was listed with an estimated fortune of £110million.[2] In 1985 he sold Adoration of the Magi by Andrea Mantegna at Christie's in London to the Getty Museum for a then-world record auction price of $10.5 million (£8.1m).[3][4] In November 1993, the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court confirmed his claim to the ownership of the Sevso Treasure, a hoard of late Roman Empire silver.[5] The hoard was later purchased by Hungary (who claims they have been repatriated, although Yugoslavia, later Croatia, and Lebanon claimed it at the time of the court case) in two phases, first in 2014 and second in 2017.[6]
He is a Freemason, and served as the Pro Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England from 2001 until March 2009.
Compton is the son of the Most Hon. William Compton, 6th Marquess of Northampton and Virginia Lucie Compton, née Heaton. The family seats are Castle Ashby House and Compton Wynyates.
The heir apparent to the marquessate and its subsidiary titles is Northampton's only son Daniel, Earl Compton (b. 1973). The heir apparent's heir apparent is his son, Henry Douglas Hungerford Compton, Lord Wilmington (born 2018).
He has been married six times. On 13 June 1967, Compton married Henriette Luisa Maria Bentinck, daughter of Adolph Willem Carel Baron Bentinck and Gabrielle Baronin Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kaszon. The couple had two children and divorced in 1973.
The next year, in 1974, Compton married Annette Marie Smallwood; they divorced in 1977. Later that year, he married Rosemary Ashley Morrit Hancock, who had previously been married to Hon. Lionel Dawson-Damer. They had one child before divorcing in 1983.
On 12 January 1985, he married Hannelore Ellen (née Erhardt), who had previously been married to Michael Pearson, 4th Viscount Cowdray. Compton and Erhardt had one child and divorced in 1988.
On 10 December 1990, he married Pamela Martina Raphaela (née Haworth), who had previously been married to Emanuel Kyprios. They divorced in January 2013. Later that same year, on 4 September 2013 in London, he married Tracy Goodman, to whom he has remained married.