John Samuel Wanley Sawbridge Erle-Drax (born Sawbridge; 6 October 1800 – 5 January 1887) was a British Member of Parliament (MP) during the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

Personal life

Born John Sawbridge, he was the son of

Samuel Elias Sawbridge Samuel Elias Sawbridge (7 January 1769 – 27 May 1850) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons of Great Britain and then of the United Kingdom from 1796 to 1797 and again in 1807. He was the second son of John Sawbridge of Ol ...

, of

Olantigh Olantigh is an English house north of Wye in the civil parish of Wye with Hinxhill. The garden terraces and towered stable block were Grade II listed in 1989 and extend to , beside the Great Stour river. Garden features include a wide variety ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, and grandson of

John Sawbridge John Sawbridge (1732 – 21 February 1795) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1768 to 1780. Sawbridge was the eldest son of John Sawbridge, FRS of Olantigh and his wife Elizabeth Wanley, daughter of George Wanley. ...

Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional powe ...

in 1775. John married Jane Frances Erle-Drax-Grosvenor, daughter of Richard Erle-Drax-Grosvenor, in 1827. On 13 August 1828, his wife's brother Richard Erle-Drax-Grosvenor died unmarried, and he succeeded to her family estates, including

Charborough House Charborough House, also known as Charborough Park, is a Grade I listed building, the manor house of the ancient manor of Charborough. The house is between the villages of Sturminster Marshall and Bere Regis in Dorset, England. The grounds, whic ...

, assuming the surname of Erle-Drax. He was a captain in the

East Kent Militia The East Kent Militia, later the 3rd Battalion, Buffs (East Kent Regiment) was an auxiliary regiment raised in Kent in South East England. From its formal creation in 1760 the regiment served in home and colonial defence in all of Britain's major ...

, and raised a troop of the

Dorsetshire Yeomanry The Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry was a yeomanry regiment of the British Army founded in 1794 as the Dorsetshire Regiment of Volunteer Yeomanry Cavalry in response to the growing threat of invasion during the Napoleonic wars. It gained its first ro ...

in 1830 to deal with the ''Disturbances'' or Swing Riots of that year; he held the patronage of five church livings, and was a deputy-lieutenant of

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

in the late 1850s. Erle-Drax built his mausoleum, located beside

Holnest Holnest is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It lies in the Blackmore Vale south of Sherborne. It is a scattered village, sited on Oxford clay which is drained by a small stream called The Cam. The A352 mai ...

church in the

Blackmore Vale The Blackmore Vale (; less commonly spelt ''Blackmoor'') is a vale, or wide valley, in north Dorset, and to a lesser extent south Somerset and southwest Wiltshire in southern England. Geography The vale is part of the Stour valley, part of t ...

, fifteen years before his death. He included in the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

-style design a

letter box A letter box, letterbox, letter plate, letter hole, mail slot or mailbox is a receptacle for receiving incoming mail at a private residence or business. For outgoing mail, Post boxes are often used for depositing the mail for collection, althou ...

, through which he arranged to have ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' delivered daily. He died on 5 January 1887, at which time the date was added to the epitaph. The mausoleum was demolished in 1935 and replaced by a flat memorial stone.

Parliament

After serving a term as

High Sheriff of Dorset The High Sheriff of Dorset is an ancient high sheriff title which has been in existence for over one thousand years. Until 1567 the Sheriff of Somerset was also the Sheriff of Dorset. On 1 April 1974, under the provisions of the Local Government ...

in 1840 Erle-Drax was the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

(

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...

) Member of Parliament for Wareham for three periods between 1841 and 1880. Wareham was a

pocket borough A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act 1832, which had a very small electorat ...

with just 342 electors, controlled jointly by Erle-Drax and

John Hales Calcraft John Hales Calcraft (23 September 1796 – 13 March 1880) was a British Whig, Conservative and Tory politician. Family Born at Rempstone Hall in Purbeck, Dorset, Calcraft was the son of John Calcraft and Elizabeth née Hales (daughter of Si ...

, who arranged for one or the other of them to be returned at each election. Immediately prior to the opening of the polls at one election, he made the following statement to the electors of Wareham: "I understand that some evil-disposed person has been circulating a report that I wish my tenants, and other persons dependent upon me, to vote according to their conscience. This is a dastardly lie, calculated to injure me. I have no wish of the sort. I wish, and intend, that these people should vote for me." During his tenure in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

, Erle-Drax was known as the "Silent MP". He made only one known statement in the House, which was a request that the

Speaker of the House The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England. Usage The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hungerf ...

have a window opened. Erle-Drax's descendant, Richard Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, was elected as Member of Parliament for

South Dorset South Dorset is a List of United Kingdom Parliament constituencies, constituency represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, UK Parliament since 2010 by Richard Drax, a Co ...

in the

2010 United Kingdom general election The 2010 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 6 May 2010, with 45,597,461 registered voters entitled to vote to elect members to the House of Commons. The election took place in 650 constituencies across the United Kingdom unde ...

using the 'truncated' name Richard Drax. During the

campaign period, the

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...

reported that Richard Drax's family had earned their fortune through slavery. Drax's response questioned his responsibility for "something that happened 300 or 400 years ago", stating "it's not what I stand for", and cited the desperation of his opponents- "all they can do is pick at bits of my family history". In 2013, the BBC noted that his ancestor John Erle-Drax, who had an estate in Barbados, was recorded in a database created by

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

as having received £4,293 12s 6d in compensation for 189 slaves when slavery was abolished.

Wimbledon Common

Erle-Drax is reported to have been responsible for the destruction, in 1875, of the remains of an

Iron Age fort A hillfort is a type of earthworks (engineering), earthwork used as a fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or I ...

Wimbledon Common Wimbledon Common is a large open space in Wimbledon, southwest London. There are three named areas: Wimbledon Common, Putney Heath, and Putney Lower Common, which together are managed under the name Wimbledon and Putney Commons totalling 460 ...

References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Erle Drax, John Samuel Wanley Sawbridge 1800 births 1887 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1841–1847 UK MPs 1847–1852 UK MPs 1852–1857 UK MPs 1859–1865 UK MPs 1868–1874 UK MPs 1874–1880 Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry officers Deputy Lieutenants of Dorset British Militia officers High Sheriffs of Dorset Ernle family