1st January 1848 SA

Death of the Earl of Harrowby

It is with no ordinary feelings of personal regret that we avail ourselves of this, our earliest opportunity to announce the demise of the above-named venerable and much respected Nobleman, who expired from influenza after only three days’ illness, on Sunday last, at Sandon Hall, in this county. The noble Earl was first attacked on Thursday morning, and by noon on that day his illness had assumed a dangerous aspect, so much that letters were dispatched to the different members of the family, apprising them of the precarious state of his Lordship. He continued to decline rapidly up the hour of his dissolution, without undergoing any favourable change. His Lordship retained his consciousness during the whole period of his illness, except for the few hours immediately preceding his departure. His Lordship’s dying couch was surrounded by most of the members of his family. There were present Lord Sandon, Lady Frances Sandon and their children, the Hon. Granville and Lady Georgiana Ryder, Capt. and Lady Mary Saurin, and three of their children, and the Rev. W. E. Caldwell, of this town, and John Masfen, Esq. surgeon, were likewise present. Nothing would afford us more melancholy pleasure than to be permitted to describe the impressive scenes which were witnessed in the dying chamber of that excellent Nobleman, but motives of delicacy forbid us. We may, however, observe that the closing scene of life was perfectly consonant with what the tenor of that life had been, particularly in those later years, when having retired from the arena of political activity, the noble Earl had devoted himself exclusively to the furtherance of the cause of religion in his own county, in his own parish, in his own household, and, we may emphatically add, in his own heart. For many years his Lordship had taken an active and most useful part in the great objects of the important Diocesan Societies, formed for the extension of the means of religious instruction. Indeed every kindred object and Society found in him a warm supporter and a munificent contributor. His conduct in his own parish and house had been so exemplary, that it may truly be said of him, that “being dead, he yet speaketh,” by the force of that beautiful example which he set of attention to religious and social duties. Even when bowed down by age and infirmity, his attendance at church and at the Sacrament was uninterrupted. His tenantry and neighbours received every encouragement from him in regard to their temporal as well as spiritual interests. In the memoir which we subjoin will be found all the leading incidents in the long and valuable life of the Noble Earl. His friendship for the great statesman Pitt is cursorily mentioned in that memoir; but its strength and permanence will be best understood by the fact, that the Noble Earl, soon after the death of Pitt, erected an Obelisk to his memory in Sandon Park, the pedestal of which bears the following inscription:—

Gulielmo Pitt

Dudleuis de Harrowby

Patri Patriae Civis

Mærins Posuit.

MDCCCVII.

The interment of the remains of the deceased Earl will take place this day (Saturday) at 11 o’clock. All the members have, we believe, assembled. Lord Wharncliffe passed through Stafford yesterday on his way to Sandon Hall. By the express instructions of the present Earl, all unnecessary pomp and show at the funeral will be avoided. The attendance, however, will be numerous, as all the tenants, labourers, and school children will follow the remains to their last resting place. The children and the labourers and their wives will all be clothed in mourning at the expense of the noble Earl, who has also most considerately presented the tenantry with mourning. A sermon will be preached by the Rev. E. W. Caldwell on the occasion of the death of the deceased nobleman, in Sandon Church, on Sunday morning; and it will most probably be repeated by the rev. gentleman in St. Mary’s, Stafford, in the evening.

Memoir of the Earl of Harrowby

Dudley Ryder, first Earl of Harrowby, was born in London, on the 22nd of December, 1762, and had, therefore, at the period of his death, attained the great age of 85. The noble earl entered St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he passed his collegiate course with considerable honour, proving himself to be (what it is well known his lordship was) a profound classic. Notwithstanding his lordship’s admitted talents in this respect, we do not find that he possessed any great desire for collegiate distinctions, as it appears that he was fully satisfied with the degree of M.A., which he took in 1782, being a short time previous to his final departure from the precincts of Alma Mater, and his entrance into public life. He came into Parliament as member for the borough of Tiverton, in the month of May, 1784, being then only in the 22nd year of his age,—so that his political career commences very soon after Lord Shelburne’s had closed. He lived, therefore, during the American war of independence, and we find him taking an active part in public affairs throughout our tremendous struggles with the French Republic and the empire of Napoleon. In the service of the Crown for nearly 40 years, he never gave much time or thought to the ungrateful toils of opposition, or the arts to which disappointed faction habitually resorts. The first office conferred on him was that of Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Duke of Leeds being then at the head of that department; but in the course of the following year Mr. Ryder resigned this situation, in order to take the office of Controller of the Household, to which was added a seat at the India Board; and shortly afterwards he was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council. In these situations he showed considerable aptitude for public business, and Mr. Pitt found him a very useful coadjutor in the House of Commons; so that within twelve months he received further promotion, being appointed Paymaster of the Forces and Vice-President of the Board of Trade. In the interval which elapsed between 1791 and 1800 his position underwent no official change; but his Parliamentary reputation materially increased. Lord Harrowby—then Mr. Ryder— was a “man of very good presence.” The first glance prepossessed every beholder in his favour, and he enjoyed a further source of popularity in the possession of a most agreeable voice and a graceful elocution; his style— technically so called—was clear, appropriate, and elegant. To these qualities he added official experience, and activity; his services were, therefore, found most useful in 1791, when he was appointed chairman of the Finance Committee; he also presided over the inquiries of the Corn Committee, in the year 1800. At all periods of his life he was a man much esteemed by all his colleagues in office, and he enjoyed the closest personal friendship of Mr. Pitt.

In 1795 Mr. Ryder formed a matrimonial alliance of the highest order. The object of his choice was Lady Susan Leveson Gower, who was sixth daughter of Granville, first Marquis of Stafford. Her Ladyship having been born in 1772, was ten years junior to her husband, who, at the period to which we now refer, was in the 33d [sic] year of his age. The union of these noble persons was solemnised at Lambeth Palace, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the 30th July in the year we have now mentioned. By that lady, who died in 1838, he had a large family, four sons and five daughters; namely, the late Viscountess Ebrington, Viscount Sandon (now Earl of Harrowby) the Hon. Granville Dudley Ryder, Lady Mary Saurin, Lady Wharncliffe, the Hon. Frederick Dudley Ryder, the Hon. Edward (died in infancy,) Lady Harriet Hervey, and Lady Louisa Fortescue.

The lamented deceased was grandson of Sir Dudley Ryder, the celebrated solicitor and Attorney-General, who was in 1754, appointed to the highest judicial office in the Common Law, that of Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. In two years from that date the Government proposed to confer a peerage upon Sir Dudley, and on the 24th of May, 1754, his patent was signed by George II., but the Chief Justice died on the following day, and that important instrument did not pass the great seal. Sir Richard Ryder’s eldest son, Nathaniel, was a man of good estate. He married Miss Terrick, daughter of the Bishop of London, and became the father of the noble Earl with whose memoirs we are now engaged. On the 20th of May, 1776, Nathaniel Ryder was created Baron Harrowby, and the noble Earl just deceased therefore became at the age of 14, the Hon. Dudley Ryder.

Resuming now the thread of our political reminiscences, we return to the year 1800, when the Treasurership of the Navy was conferred on Mr. Ryder. He held this office in commendam with that of Vice President of the Board of Trade for about one year. The frequent changes of Administration, however, which the current of events in those days rendered unavoidable, very materially interfered with the undisturbed enjoyment of office. On the 20th of June, 1803, Mr. Ryder, upon the death of his father, became second Baron Harrowby, and therefore ceased to be a member of the House of Commons. The Addington Ministry gave up the ghost in May, 1804, and Mr. Pitt becoming Premier, instructed the seals of the Foreign Office to Lord Harrowby; an appointment that even the opponents of his Lordship could not but approve, from the very superior order of diplomatic talents which the noble lord was then known to possess. Lord Harrowby’s tenure of office was, however, of very brief duration, for he resigned before eight months had passed away. The ostensible ground of his retirement was ill-health; it might have arisen from a difference between his Lordship and the Prime Minister upon some public principle; for, Lord Harrowby was a man of sterling honour, and unimpeachable integrity, and was sufficiently independent, even under the régime of Mr. Pitt, to think and act for himself. Notwithstanding his resignation of office, Lord Harrowby retained his seat in the cabinet, and was, on the 1st of July in the same year, appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; but even that office he held during very little more than six months; for the Whigs obtained a temporary possession of the cabinet in the early part of the following year. In November, 1805—some months previous to their accession to power—he was intrusted with a mission of very high importance. England was at that time subsidizing a fresh coalition against France; and Lord Harrowby, being invested with the most ample authority, was directed to proceed successively to Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburgh. Conformably with his instructions, he repaired, in the first instance, to the Court of Prussia, and so far succeeded in the object of his mission as to procure the assent of that Power to a treaty, defensive and offensive, with Great Britain and against France. That instrument was actually prepared for signature, but the progress of the French army totally changed the aspect of affairs, and the battle of Austerlitz gave to Buonaparte an ascendancy on the continent which was never wholly annihilated until his memorable defeat at Waterloo. In the year 1807 the Duke of Portland’s Ministry was formed, and Lord Harrowby gave that Government his entire and cordial support, without, however, taking any office during the first two years of its existence; but towards its close, in 1898, he accepted the Presidency of the Board of Control, yet resigned that situation after having held it for only a few months. He remained, however, a member of the Cabinet, without office, until the death of Mr. Perceval. Thus, then, we have accompanied him through 28 years of his public life, in the course of which period he was successively Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Controller of the Household, Paymaster-General of the Forces, Vice-President of the Board of Trade, Treasurer of the Navy, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Plenipotentiary in Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and President of the Board of Control—and during the entire of that period, his Lordship’s conduct was such, that the purity of his motives in every act of his ministerial life, were “above suspicion”—he was a steady and staunch friend to the party with which he was connected—no wavering or ambiguity in the expression of their political principles, to which, “through good and bad report,” he steadfastly adhered—most regardful, at all times, of what was due to his character as a public man, and totally incapable of sacrificing political principle for any purpose of personal aggrandisement. His able and meritorious services to his sovereign and his country were not unappreciated nor forgotten by the former, as we find that on the 20th of July, 1809, he was, in the words of the Gazette, raised to “the dignity of an earl of the United Kingdom, by the style and title of Earl of Harrowby, in the county of Lincoln, and Viscount Sandon, in the county of Stafford.”

In the course of the next year the noble Earl published a well written pamphlet on the augmentation of the poorer class of church benefices, and suggested a mode of effecting that object without encroaching on the rights of property or increasing the public burdens; and in 1811 he made a speech in the House of Lords, the substances of which he afterwards published as a pamphlet. The subject of this brochure was a grant of £100,000 for the relief of the poorer clergy. Again, in 1812, he brought forward a bill for the better support of stipendiary curates; but, owing to the opposition of the law lords and some of the bishops, it proved necessary to postpone that measure till the following session, when it became law. It is well understood that its operation tended greatly to improve the condition of curates serving under non-resident incumbents; and it is generally considered that this “Curates’ Act,” which is known by his Lordship’s name, has tended more than any other individual statute of modern times to raise the character of the church, and to enable the great religious establishment of this country to withstand the hostility by which, often since the passing of Lord Harrowby’s Act, it has been unsparingly assailed.

At the period which this narrative has now reached, the Earl of Harrowby was in the zenith of his political career, and when the death of Mr. Perceval, in 1872, led to the formation of the Liverpool Ministry, the dignified office of President of the Council was conferred upon his lordship, which situation he continued to hold up to the formation of the Canning administration, in 1827,—a case unparalleled on record. The first three years of Lord Liverpool’s ministry were to the task of bringing the war to a conclusion; and for a considerable time afterwards their chief occupation consisted in mitigating the transition from war to peace, counteracting the effects of a paper currency, of a cycle of bad harvests, and of a long-continued want of employment for the working classes. The currency, however, was that subject to which Lord Harrowby’s attention became more particularly delivered,—when a committee, therefore, was appointed by the Lords, in 1819, the noble earl was placed at its head. He, of course, prepared its report, and that important document has often, since then, been referred to as a work of no inconsiderable authority. The Government, having disposed of this and other questiones vexatæ, were next called upon to deal with a fresh and formidable undertaking in the shape of a bill of “pains and penalties” against Queen Caroline. Lord Harrowby, as a member of the Administration, supported this measure; but he strenuously opposed the divorce clause.

In the month of February, 1820, an event took place, the narrative of seems more properly to enter into a biographical notice of Lord Harrowby than into the memoirs of any other amongst the eminent persons who might have been affected by its results. A gang of conspirators, with the well-known Arthur Thistlewood as their leader, formed a carefully-organised plan to assassinate all the King’s ministers. On the 23rd of February, a Cabinet dinner was to take place at the residence of Lord Harrowby, in Grosvenor-square; and, although the Government learned some particulars of the plot, the precise hour appointed for its execution had not been made known at the Home-office until within a day or two of the time which the conspirators had chosen for the perpetration of this enormous atrocity. Lord Harrowby was the first to be made acquainted with the exact moment intended to be fatal to himself and his colleagues; and it was understood that his lordship’s penetration and moral courage were remarkably exemplified by the manner in which he obtained information on the subject from a man who seemed casually to have met him in the Park. Of course, the intended dinner in Grosvenor-square was privately postponed; and twelve Bow-street officers, with Mr. Birnie, the magistrate, at their head, acting upon previous information, proceeded to Cato-street, Edgware-road, where in a hayloft, nearly 30 of the conspirators had assembled. Nine of these were, after a desperate conflict, taken into custody; and eventually five of the number were executed. The conspirators had provided cutlasses, carbines, daggers, and bayonets sufficient to arm a hundred men. They had a large supply of ammunition, besides several hand grenades; and they were fully resolved to destroy every individual whom they might find in Lord Harrowby’s house. This awfully criminal purpose was, however, frustrated by the decision of Lord Harrowby and the clear and exact information which the Government contrived to obtain.

Of Lord Harrowby’s life, either in public or in private, very little more remains to be recorded. Every one recollects that during the Ministry of Lord Liverpool the Roman Catholic claims were regarded as an “open question.” Of this Lord Harrowby availed himself, and generally supported a measure of relief. Though he had been through life a zealous member of the Church of England, he did not oppose, but on the contrary supported, a repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. On the 17th August, 1827, the Duke of Portland kissed hands as President of the Council, and the noble Earl just deceased finally retired from the service of the Crown. For some years afterwards he continued to attend the House of Peers, and occasionally to assist in its deliberations by delivering, with his usual good sense and good taste, a few of those just and appropriate remarks by which his speeches in early life were usually characterised. But gradually his attendances became less frequent; at length he began to vote by proxy, and finally was ‘”no more seen in the senate-house.” Full 20 years have elapsed since his Lordship withdrew from public life to that dignified leisure which he had earned by a career of useful activity, to that repose which the infirmities of advancing years demanded, and to those opportunities for reflection and retrospect which good men desire to enjoy towards the close of their earthly existence.

The deceased Earl was nominated to the Privy Council as far back as 1790; was a Governor of the Charter House, as Doctor of Civil Law, a Trustee of the British Museum, a Commissioner for Building Churches, a Fellow of the Society of Arts, High Steward of Tiverton, and a Member of the Ecclesiastical Commission.

The late Earl is succeeded in the title and family estates by Dudley Viscount Sandon, who was born the 23rd of May, 1798, and married the 15th of September, 1823, Lady France Stuart, fourth daughter of John, first Marquis of Bute, by whom he has a numerous family.

The families of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, Lord and Lady Wharncliffe, the Marquis and Marchioness of Bute, and Earl and Countess of St. Germans, Lord and Lady James Stuart, Sir George and Lady Gray, the Duchess Dowager of Beaufort, Viscount Morpeth, &c. are placed in mourning by the lamented event.

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