Constantine Henry Phipps, 1st Marquess of Normanby, (15 May 1797 – 28 July 1863), styled Viscount Normanby between 1812 and 1831 and known as The Earl of Mulgrave between 1831 and 1838, was a British
Whig politician and author. He notably served as
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (), or more formally Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland, was the title of the chief governor of Ireland from the Williamite Wars of 1690 until the Partition of Ireland in 1922. This spanned the K ...
from 1835 to 1839 and as
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...
from 1839 to 1841 and was
British Ambassador to France between 1846 and 1852.
Early life and education
Normanby was the son of
Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave
General Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave, (14 February 17557 April 1831), styled The Honourable Henry Phipps until 1792 and known as The Lord Mulgrave from 1792 to 1812, was a British Army officer and politician who served as Foreign Secret ...
and Martha Sophia, daughter of Christopher Thompson Maling. His great-grandfather William Phipps had married Lady
Catherine Annesley, who was the daughter and heiress of
James Annesley, 3rd Earl of Anglesey and his wife Lady
Catherine Darnley
Catherine Colyear, ''suo jure'' Countess of Dorchester and Countess of Portmore (''Birth name, née'' Sedley; 21 December 1657 – 26 October 1717), was an English noble and courtier. She was the mistress of King James II of England both before ...
(an illegitimate daughter of
King James II
James II and VII (14 October 1633 – 16 September 1701) was King of England and Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685, until he was deposed in the 1688 Glori ...
by his mistress
Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester). Lady Catherine Darnley had later married
John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby
John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby (7 April 164824 February 1721) was an English poet and Tory politician of the late Stuart period who served as Lord Privy Seal and Lord President of the Council. He was also known by his o ...
, and hence Constantine Phipps, 2nd Earl of Mulgrave and later 1st Marquess of Normanby was the step-great-great-grandson of the 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby. He was educated at
Harrow and
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...
,
where he was the second President of the
Cambridge Union Society
The Cambridge Union Society, also known as the Cambridge Union, is a historic Debate, debating and free speech society in Cambridge, England, and the largest society in the University of Cambridge. The society was founded in 1815 making it the ...
.
Lt.-Gen. Sir
Henry Warre was his first cousin, born to his mother's youngest sister, who married Sir
William Warre.
Political career
After attaining his majority, he was returned on his father's interest for
Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to:
People
* Scarborough (surname)
* Earl of Scarbrough
Places Australia
* Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth
* Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong
* Scarborough, Queensland, sub ...
in 1818. However, in the summer of 1819, he began to break with his family's Tory politics, and signalised his conversion to the Whigs by joining
Brooks' Club on 3 December. When Parliament was dissolved in 1820, Normanby was in
Florence, Italy
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence was a centre of medieval European t ...
, to which he was a regular visitor. His brother
Charles
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''* ...
kept up the family interest with the Scarborough corporation, and Normanby was returned in absentia in March, despite being politically at odds with his father. This state of affairs was not to last long: in May, Normanby was compelled to
take the Chiltern Hundreds by Lord Mulgrave, to vacate the seat for Mulgrave's brother
Edmund
Edmund is a masculine given name in the English language. The name is derived from the Old English elements ''ēad'', meaning "prosperity" or "riches", and ''mund'', meaning "protector".
Persons named Edmund include:
People Kings and nobles
*Ed ...
.
His standing as a former Tory minister's son made Normanby valuable to the Whigs, and they hoped to return him to Parliament in another seat. An attempt was made to have him put in at
St Ives at a by-election in 1821, but support proved to be lacking, and Normanby withdrew without contesting the seat. The illness and death of
William Plumer
William Plumer (June 25, 1759December 22, 1850) was an American lawyer, Baptist lay preacher, and politician from Epping, New Hampshire. He is most notable for his service as a Federalist in the United States Senate (1802–1807), and the sevent ...
in the beginning of 1822 allowed him to take his seat in February for
Higham Ferrers
Higham Ferrers is a market town and civil parish in the Nene Valley in North Northamptonshire, England, close to the Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire borders. It forms a single built-up area with Rushden to the south and had a population of 8,82 ...
, a pocket borough of the Whig grandee
Earl Fitzwilliam.
He made a considerable reputation by political pamphlets and by his speeches in the house. He was returned for
Malton at the general election of 1826,
[ another one of Fitzwilliam's boroughs.] He was already known as a writer of romantic tales, ''The English in Italy'' (1825); in the same year he made his appearance as a novelist with '' Matilda'', and in 1828 he produced another novel, ''Yes and No
''Yes'' and ''no'', or similar word pairs, are expressions of the affirmative and the negative, respectively, in several languages, including English. Some languages make a distinction between answers to affirmative versus negative questions ...
''.[ He declined to be nominated again for Malton in 1830, anticipating the imminent death of his father, and was thus out of Parliament when Lord Grey formed a government in November 1830. Normanby hoped for employment by the foreign office, but none was forthcoming. Through Lord Durham, Normanby solicited a writ in acceleration from Grey in early 1831, which would have brought him up to the House of Lords before his father's death; but Normanby succeeded to the Earldom of Mulgrave on his father's death in April, rendering it moot.]
In 1832, Mulgrave was sent out as Governor of Jamaica and was afterwards appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (), or more formally Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland, was the title of the chief governor of Ireland from the Williamite Wars of 1690 until the Partition of Ireland in 1922. This spanned the K ...
(1835–1839).[ On his visit to ]Wexford
Wexford ( ; archaic Yola dialect, Yola: ''Weiseforthe'') is the county town of County Wexford, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Wexford lies on the south side of Wexford Harbour, the estuary of the River Slaney near the southeastern corner of the ...
in 1836 he heard a Congratulatory Address in the ancient Forth and Bargy dialect
Yola, more commonly and historically the Forth and Bargy dialect, is an extinct dialect of the Middle English language once spoken in the baronies of Forth and Bargy in County Wexford, Ireland. As such, it was probably similar to the Fingall ...
, then already on the point of becoming extinct. He was created Marquess of Normanby on 25 June 1838, and held successively the offices of colonial secretary and home secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...
in the last years of Lord Melbourne
Henry William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (15 March 177924 November 1848) was a British Whig politician who served as the Home Secretary and twice as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
His first premiership ended when he was dismissed ...
's ministry.[ While Colonial Secretary, he wrote a letter of instructions to ]William Hobson
Captain William Hobson (26 September 1792 – 10 September 1842) was an Anglo-Irish officer in the British Royal Navy, who served as the first Governor of New Zealand. He was a co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Hobson was dispatched f ...
, in which the government's policy for the sovereignty
Sovereignty can generally be defined as supreme authority. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within a state as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body or institution that has the ultimate au ...
of New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
was set out.
Diplomatic career
From 1846 to 1852 he was ambassador at Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, and from 1854 to 1858 minister at Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence ...
. The publication in 1857 of a journal kept in Paris during the stormy times of 1848 (''A Year of Revolution''), brought him into violent controversy with Louis Blanc
Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc ( ; ; 29 October 1811 – 6 December 1882) was a French Socialism, socialist politician, journalist and historian. He called for the creation of cooperatives in order to job guarantee, guarantee employment for t ...
, and he came into conflict with Lord Palmerston
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865), known as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman and politician who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1855 to 1858 and from 1859 to 1865. A m ...
and William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British politican, starting as Conservative MP for Newark and later becoming the leader of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party.
In a career lasting over 60 years, he ...
, after his retirement from the public service, on questions of French and Italian policy.[
]
Marriage and children
Lord Normanby married Maria Liddell (1798–1882), daughter of Thomas Liddell, 1st Baron Ravensworth, in 1818. They had one son:[Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003]
* George Augustus Constantine Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby (23 Jul 1819 - 3 April 1890)
Death
Normanby died in London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
on 28 July 1863, aged 66, and was succeeded in his titles by his son George. The Marchioness of Normanby died in October 1882, aged 84.
Writings
* ''The English in Italy'', a novel in three volumes (1825):
**
**
**
* (four editions).
* ''Historiettes'', in three volumes (1827):
**
**
**
* ''The English in France'', in three volumes (1828):
**
**
**
* '' Yes and No: a Tale of the Day'', in two volumes (1828):
**
**
* '' The Contrast'', in three volumes (1832):
**
**
**
Notes
References
*Directory of Royal Genealogical Data, Brian Tompsett, as of 1 March 2003
*Letter of Lord Normanby to William Hobson, 14 August 1839
- starting near the bottom of this page and continuing to subsequent pages.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Normanby, Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of
1797 births, Normanby
Normanby
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Normanby
Secretaries of State for the Home Department
Normanby, Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of
Normanby, Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of
Normanby, Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of
Normanby, Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of
Normanby, Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of
Normanby, Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of
Normanby, Constantine Phipps
Normanby, Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of
Normanby, Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of
Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies
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Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to France
Constantine
1
Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria
Secretaries of State for War and the Colonies
19th-century English novelists
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19th-century English male writers