Sir Charles Michael Robert Vivian Duff, 3rd Baronet (3 May 1907 – 3 March 1980) was a British socialite who was Lord Lieutenant, first of Caernarvonshire, and then of Gwynedd.
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Family
Duff was the only son of Sir Robert George Vivian Duff, 2nd Baronet, of Vaynol (d.1914), and his wife, Lady Juliet Lowther (1881–1965), only child of the 4th Earl of Lonsdale by his wife, Constance Robinson, Marchioness of Ripon. His maternal grandmother was a sister of the 13th and 14th Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, and a daughter of the Rt. Hon. Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea, the half-Russian younger son of the 10th Earl of Pembroke, and a good friend to Florence Nightingale. He had one sibling, Victoria Maud Veronica Duff (1904–1967, married John Edward Tennant). His stepfather from 1919 until 1926 was Major Keith Trevor.
He was a godson of Mary of Teck (queen of King George V). Handsome and good-mannered, he was famed as a host and raconteur. He inherited the 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) Welsh estate of Vaynol (also known by its Welsh spelling 'Faenol'), the slate of which was the principal source of the family's wealth. Surrounded by the estate's seven-mile-long stone wall, the Duffs lived in Vaynol New Hall, which had been built in 1800. The medieval Vaynol Old Hall, also on the estate, was occupied by the farm manager and later the estate manager.
In 1928, Sir Michael assumed the additional surname of Assheton-Smith, only to renounce it in 1945. In 1930, he was a godfather to Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, later husband of Princess Margaret. He served as High Sheriff of Anglesey for 1950. He then served as Mayor of Caernarvon, High Sheriff of Caernarvonshire (1932) and Lord Lieutenant of both Caernarvonshire and of Gwynedd.