William Leader Maberly (1798–1885) spent most of his life as a British army officer and Whig politician.

Life

He was the eldest child of John Maberly (1777–1845), a currier, clothing manufacturer, banker and MP, who had made and lost a fortune in a lifetime. He became a member of parliament, initially for Westbury (1819–20), then

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

(1820–30), then

Shaftesbury Shaftesbury () is a town and civil parish in Dorset, England. It is situated on the A30 road, west of Salisbury, near the border with Wiltshire. It is the only significant hilltop settlement in Dorset, being built about above sea level on a ...

(1831–32), and finally for

Chatham Chatham may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Canada * Chatham Islands (British Columbia) * Chatham Sound, British Columbia * Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi * Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...

(1832–34). In 1831 he was

Surveyor-General of the Ordnance The Surveyor-General of the Ordnance was a subordinate of the Master-General of the Ordnance and a member of the Board of Ordnance, a British government body, from its constitution in 1597. Appointments to the post were made by the crown under Le ...

and in 1832

Clerk of the Ordnance {{Infobox official post , post = Office of the Clerk of the Ordnance , body = , nativename = , insignia = File:Badge of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps on a RML 10 inch 18 ton gun in Gibraltar.jpg , insigniasize ...

; then, in 1834, he became a Commissioner of

HM Customs HM Customs (His or Her Majesty's Customs) was the national Customs service of England (and then of Great Britain from 1707, the United Kingdom from 1801) until a merger with the Department of Excise in 1909. The phrase 'HM Customs', in use si ...

. In 1836, he was appointed as joint secretary to the

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...

, where he strongly opposed the introduction of the

Penny Post The Penny Post is any one of several postal systems in which normal letters could be sent for one penny. Five such schemes existed in the United Kingdom while the United States initiated at least three such simple fixed rate postal arrangements. Un ...

, a plan championed by

Rowland Hill Sir Rowland Hill, KCB, FRS (3 December 1795 – 27 August 1879) was an English teacher, inventor and social reformer. He campaigned for a comprehensive reform of the postal system, based on the concept of Uniform Penny Post and his soluti ...

to charge a fixed price for postage (as is now the normal practice in most of the world). One of Maberly's principal secretaries during his time at the Post Office was the novelist

Anthony Trollope Anthony Trollope (; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the '' Chronicles of Barsetshire'', which revolves ar ...

, who later parodied Maberly as Sir Boreas Bodkin in the novel ''Marion Fay''. On stepping down from the Post Office in 1854 he was appointed a Commissioner of Audit, remaining in post until 1867. In 1865, the Canadian Post Office Department Secretary

William Dawson LeSueur William Dawson LeSueur (February 19, 1840 – September 23, 1917) was a Canadian civil servant and author.

named the settlement of Maberly, Ontario in Maberly's honour.

Marriage

He married Irish novelist Catherine C. Prittie (1805–75) in 1830. Their only child, William Anson Robert Maberly, died at the age of 29 in the Isle of Wight.

References

External links

Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

The naming of Maberly, Ontario

External links

* 1798 births 1885 deaths Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies UK MPs 1818–1820 UK MPs 1820–1826 UK MPs 1826–1830 UK MPs 1831–1832 UK MPs 1832–1835 British Army officers {{UK-army-bio-stub