William Duncombe, 2nd Baron Feversham
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William Duncombe, 2nd Baron Feversham (14 January 1798 – 11 February 1867), was a British peer with a large estate in the
North Riding of Yorkshire The North Riding of Yorkshire was a subdivision of Yorkshire, England, alongside York, the East Riding and West Riding. The riding's highest point was at Mickle Fell at . From the Restoration it was used as a lieutenancy area, having b ...
. He was prominent in the affairs of the Royal Agricultural Society and owner of a prize-winning herd of short-horn cattle. He served as a
Tory A Tory () is an individual who supports a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalist conservatism which upholds the established social order as it has evolved through the history of Great Britain. The To ...
Member of Parliament (MP) for the Riding from 1832 to 1841, after which he sat in the
House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...
, having succeeded to the title on the death of his father. From 1826 to 1831 he had sat as an Ultra-Tory MP. He was the first MP to support
Richard Oastler Richard Oastler (20 December 1789 – 22 August 1861) was a "Tory radical", an active opponent of Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform and a lifelong admirer of the Duke of Wellington; but also an abolitionist and prominent in t ...
's campaign for Factory Reform, and gave it unwavering support for the rest of his life; in 1847 he seconded the Second Reading in the Lords of the
Factories Act 1847 The Factories Act 1847 ( 10 & 11 Vict. c. 29), also known as the Ten Hours Act was a United Kingdom act of Parliament which restricted the working hours of women and young persons (13–18) in textile mills to 10 hours per day. The practicalit ...
(the 'Ten-Hour Act').


Background

Feversham was the eldest son of
Charles Duncombe Charles Duncombe may refer to: * Charles Duncombe (English banker) (1648–1711), English banker, MP and Lord Mayor * Charles Duncombe, 1st Baron Feversham (1764–1841), English MP *Charles Duncombe (Upper Canada Rebellion) (1792–1867), American ...
(subsequently (1826) created Baron Feversham), and Lady Charlotte, daughter of
William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, PC, FRS (20 June 1731 – 15 July 1801), styled as Viscount Lewisham from 1732 to 1750, was a British statesman who served as Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1772 to 1775, during the initial stage ...
. He was born at the family's town house in London (their country seat was at Duncombe Park, just outside
Helmsley Helmsley is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the North Riding of Yorkshire, the town is located at the point where Ryedale leaves the moorland and joins the flat Vale of Pickering. Helmsley is ...
in the North Riding). He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. In 1820, he was commissioned as a cornet in the Helmsley
Yeomanry Cavalry The Yeomanry Cavalry was the mounted component of the British Volunteer Corps, a military reserve force established in 1794 amid fears of invasion and insurrection during the French Revolutionary Wars. A yeoman was a person of respectable st ...
; in 1821 he qualified as a Justice of the peace for the North Riding; by 1826, however, he was living near Doncaster. His younger brothers included the Hon. Arthur Duncombe and the Hon.
Octavius Duncombe The Hon. Octavius Duncombe (8 April 1817 – 3 December 1879) was a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician. Background Duncombe was a younger son of Charles Duncombe, 1st Baron Feversham, and Lady Charlotte, daughter of William ...
.


Public life

When the colourful Radical MP Thomas Slingsby Duncombe died in 1861, it was noted in a piece appearing in a number of newspapers that
The most comical contrast to Tom Duncombe was his cousin, the present Lord Feversham, a heavy, solid, goodnatured man, whose speeches are of the most ponderous and soporific character - "a man whose talk is of bullocks" and whose opinions were of the extreme Conservative and Protectionist colour.


Agriculturalist

When Faversham talked of bullocks, he did so as one of the leading breeders and exhibitors of short-horn cattle; animals from the Duncombe Park herd won prizes at Smithfield, at the Royal Agricultural Show, and at the Paris International Exposition of 1855, although he came to deplore the prevalence of judging criteria which led to prizes going to animals which had been over-fattened, to the detriment of their health and that of the breed. He was deeply involved with the Royal Agricultural Society, serving as its president in 1863–4, and with the Smithfield Show Club (president in 1862) as well as local and county agricultural shows. His final parliamentary speech was (in 1866) an attack on the inadequacy of the government's response to the current cattle plague outbreak:


Political views

Duncombe was a Tory; seconding th
Loyal Address
in 1822, he said that "the constitution stood so firm on its basis, was so beautifully connected in all its parts, and was so admirably adapted to all classes of society, that it was impossible but that all who enjoyed the blessing of living under it should perceive its advantages over any other system of government." Consequently, Duncombe was opposed to the great liberal causes of his time (Catholic emancipation, parliamentary reform, abolition of the corn laws) but he did not seek to reverse them. When the
Duke of Wellington Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they ar ...
decided that Catholic emancipation had to be conceded, Duncombe remained opposed to any measure of Catholic emancipation; once the measure was passed he accepted it was irreversible, but remained unreconciled to those who had granted it (an ' ultra-Tory').


Factory Reform

Duncombe rarely spoke in Parliament, other than to present petitions. However, he gave his moral support to (and exerted himself on behalf of) the Factory Reform movement; when
Richard Oastler Richard Oastler (20 December 1789 – 22 August 1861) was a "Tory radical", an active opponent of Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform and a lifelong admirer of the Duke of Wellington; but also an abolitionist and prominent in t ...
wrote to MPs in 1831 seeking their support, Duncombe was the only one to reply. Duncombe spoke at the great York Factory Reform meeting of 1832, despite his concern that his past political activity would taint the cause: he stressed 'this is not the cause of party.. It is the cause of justice .. It is the cause of real humanity, of Christian benevolence ... it is the cause of the oppressed and the industrious poor' One of his rare parliamentary speeches was to second the Second Reading of the
Factories Act 1847 The Factories Act 1847 ( 10 & 11 Vict. c. 29), also known as the Ten Hours Act was a United Kingdom act of Parliament which restricted the working hours of women and young persons (13–18) in textile mills to 10 hours per day. The practicalit ...
(the Ten-Hour Act). He spoke in favour of a "''bona fide'' ten-hours" amendment to the Factories Bill of 1850 (the Compromise Act), and also voted to include "children" in the provisions of the bill. in the week of his death, a letter from him offering his support for agitation for an eight-hour act was read out by the chairman of a meeting in Manchester. On Feversham's death in 1867, the Yorkshire Post noted that Oastler had "constantly alluded to the unfailing support he received from Lord Feversham in battling with the opponents of the bill as his principal mainstay and encouragement in the work they had undertaken"


Opposition to the Poor Law Commission

Like Oastler, he opposed the
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (4 & 5 Will. 4. c. 76) (PLAA) known widely as the New Poor Law, was an Act of Parliament (United Kingdom), act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the British Whig Party, Whig government of Charles ...
: he voted against its Third Reading (but he had been absent from all of the committee stage proceedings). Debating the Whig Poor Law Amendment Bill of 1841 (intended to extend the life of the Poor Law Commission for five years) he denounced the 1834 act: In the subsequent committee stage of the bill he repeatedly voted for amendments returning powers from the Poor Law Commission to the local guardians – most notably he was teller for an amendment removing the supervisory powers of the commission: his one recorded vote against an amendment to the bill was against one making borrowing by guardians dependent on prior approval by a vestry meeting.


Support for Richard Oastler

His support of Oastler was not only political but personal. In 1838, he presented a petition from Huddersfield supporting the refusal of its magistrates to call out the military to suppress anti-Poor Law disturbances in which Oastler had been prominent. In 1840 he intervened in a Commons debate to obtain the retraction of a description of Oastler as an incendiary by a government minister. He visited Oastler in debtors' prison, and was a trustee of the Oastler Testimonial Fund (later the Oastler Liberation Fund), and prominent in raising the money to secure the release of Oastler (being one of the guarantors who met the shortfall in the money raised to satisfy Oastler's creditor).


Career as MP

In 1820 he stood with and was elected with Charles Tennyson Member of Parliament for the two-member borough constituency of Great Grimsby. Tennyson asserted his constituents had represented to him the need for both members for the seat to hold similar views; acceding to their wishes he had selected Duncombe as his running mate. Duncombe admitted to having no prior connection with the constituency but promised to assiduously promote its interests In 1825 Duncombe was called upon to stand for election as a 'firm upholder of the Protestant cause' (opponent of Catholic emancipation) in the prestigious four-member county constituency of
Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...
. Duncombe acceded to the requisition and stood for Yorkshire, rather than Grimsby. On election day in June 1826 only four candidates (two Whig, two 'no Popery' Tories) were nominated, and therefore all (including Duncombe) were elected unopposed. Catholic emancipation split the Tories, and the Ultras (including Duncombe) withdrew their support from the government. In 1830, when Duncombe stood again for Yorkshire, Henry Brougham, a Whig-Radical standing in the same constituency said of him
Mr Duncombe is a man from whom I differ. I differed from him in respect of the Test acts and on the Catholic Bill. But we have sat in Parliament two years on the same benches, and I declare to you I never saw a man whose conduct did him more honour, or who was more perfectly independent. He has despised place and power, and given an honest and consistent opposition to many of the measures of government, and I can scarcely call to mind one question upon which, during the two years I have mentioned, we have voted on opposite sides. I think it fair to say thus much, for many men might be offered to you who would be much less deserving of your support than is the Hon. William Duncombe
None of Duncombe's previous colleagues offered themselves for re-election in 1830, but again there were three other candidates with significant backing (Brougham, another Whig, and a Wellingtonian Tory). Unlike the election of 1826 they were not immediately elected: this time a fifth candidate nominated himself and demanded a poll, The fifth candidate having received a mere handful of votes by the end of the first day of polling, the poll was closed on the second day, at which point Duncombe was third (behind the two Whig candidates). The four remaining candidates were therefore declared elected. In the 1831 general election, Duncombe was again requisitioned to stand: he accepted the invitation, but withdrew before the actual poll, it being clear that Reform candidates would take all four seats. In the reformed parliament, there were separate two-member county constituencies for each of the three ridings of Yorkshire. Duncombe stood in the
North Riding of Yorkshire The North Riding of Yorkshire was a subdivision of Yorkshire, England, alongside York, the East Riding and West Riding. The riding's highest point was at Mickle Fell at . From the Restoration it was used as a lieutenancy area, having b ...
as the sole Tory candidate. In December 1832 he headed the poll ahead of two competing Reformers; John Charles Ramsden (supported by the Whig grandees) a West Riding industrialist and former Whig MP for Yorkshire, and Edward Stillingfleet Cayley, an independent of Liberal sympathies who farmed locally and put himself forward as a friend of the interests of small agriculturalists: Cayley took the second seat. In the election of January 1835 the constituency was contested by the two sitting MPs and a second Tory: despite (it was alleged) the Tories freely opening their purses the two MPs were reelected: at a November 1835 meeting they agreed that their first concern was to protect agricultural interests, regardless of party labels. They were returned unopposed in 1837, and again in 1841, but ten days after Duncome's re-election in 1841 election his father died, and Duncombe took his seat in the
House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...
: in the consequent by-election Duncombe's brother Octavius was elected unopposed.


Parliamentary proprietor

From 1832 to 1881, when Feversham's grandson Viscount Helmsley died, the North Riding always returned one Duncombe or another as one of its MPs. Usually, the other MP was a Liberal; an 1862 by-election which briefly gave the riding two Conservative MPs saw this analysis from a Liberal newspaper: "Lord Feversham is a great Parliamentary proprietor. He keeps several seats in the House of Commons, at great expense and with jealous care; and very naturally he does as he will with his own. When one of his Parliamentary saddles is vacant a relative usually has the preference. Three of the favoured family happen just now to be thus mounted. Nobody ever hears of them in the legislative field; but who has any right to ask a question? By the law of the land the head of the House of Duncombe has the might to be represented in the Lower House of Parliament by three of his immediate kinsmen, and in our electoral system might is right."


Marriage and children

Lord Feversham married, in 1823, Lady Louisa Stewart, the youngest daughter of Admiral George Stewart, 8th Earl of Galloway. They had six children. He died in February 1867, aged 69, and was succeeded by his son, William Ernest, who was created Earl of Feversham the following year. Lady Feversham died in March 1889. Children: * Jane b 1824 m (1849) Lawrence Parsons, brother of the Earl of Rosse * Albert (1826–1846) died at Cowes from 'a raging malady' (
consumption Consumption may refer to: * Eating *Resource consumption *Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically known as consumption * Consumer (food chain), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms * Consumption (economics), the purchasing of n ...
) * Gertrude b 1827 m Francis Horatio FitzRoy, a grandson of
Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (28 September 173514 March 1811), styled Earl of Euston between 1747 and 1757, was a British Whig statesman of the Georgian era. He is one of a handful of dukes who have served as Prime Minister of t ...
*
William Duncombe, 1st Earl of Feversham William Ernest Duncombe, 1st Earl of Feversham (28 January 1829 – 13 January 1915), known as The Lord Feversham between 1867 and 1868, was a British Conservative politician. Biography Duncombe was the son of William Duncombe, 2nd Baron Fever ...
(1829–1915) * Helen b 1831 m (1855)
William Beckett-Denison William Beckett-Denison (10 September 1826 – 23 November 1890) was an English banker and Conservative Party politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1876 and 1890. He died when he fell under a train at Wimborne. Ear ...
* Hon. Cecil Duncombe (1832–1902), a Captain of the
1st Life Guards The 1st Regiment of Life Guards was a cavalry regiment in the British Army, part of the Household Cavalry. It was formed in 1788 by the union of the 1st Troop of Horse Guards and 1st Troop of Horse Grenadier Guards. In 1922, it was amalgamate ...
, Deputy Lieutenant and County Councillor for
North Riding of Yorkshire The North Riding of Yorkshire was a subdivision of Yorkshire, England, alongside York, the East Riding and West Riding. The riding's highest point was at Mickle Fell at . From the Restoration it was used as a lieutenancy area, having b ...
, and director of the North Eastern Railway; m. Eleanor Jane Mills, daughter of Sir Charles Mills, 1st Baronet. The
Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...
Feversham Monument The Feversham Monument is a memorial in the marketplace of Helmsley, a town in North Yorkshire, in England. The monument is to William Duncombe, 2nd Baron Feversham, who died in 1867. It was commissioned by his son, William Duncombe, 1st Earl ...
, "erected by his tenantry, friends and relations, who cherish his memory with affection and gratitude" stands in the middle of the market square of Helmsley, North Yorkshire. The monument (by Sir
George Gilbert Scott Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), largely known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he ...
) reportedly cost £800 raised by public subscription; the statue it houses cost £600 and was paid for by the Duncombe family.


External links

* : an incomplete record; for example, a speech on 23 April 1844 is known from contemporary newspapers, but volume 74 of Hansard, covering that period, has not been digitised. Similarly, volume 112, covering the Lords' consideration of the 1850 Factory Act (in which Feversham took part) is missing. Two speeches against the Poor Law Amendment Bill of 1841 are misattributed to 'Mr W Buncombe' (An 1845 intervention by Lord Feversham to defend
George Hudson George Hudson (probably 10 March 1800 – 14 December 1871) was an English railway financier and politician who, because he controlled a significant part of the Railway Mania, railway network in the 1840s, became known as "The Railway King"—a ...
from Lord Brougham's allegation of filibustering of the committee on the London and York Railway bill is recorded by contemporary newspapers, - but not by Hansard, which does cover the debate.This may be because Feversham had committed a procedural ''faux pas'' by saying Hudson was present and listening to the debate, and did not want this recorded by Hansard)
: Speeches by ''Mr'' William Duncombe (ie before 1826 when he became ''Hon.'') are listed separately under *


Notes


References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Feversham, William Duncombe, 2nd Baron 1798 births 1867 deaths People educated at Eton College Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Tory MPs (pre-1834) Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1826–1830 UK MPs 1830–1831 UK MPs 1831–1832 UK MPs 1832–1835 UK MPs 1835–1837 UK MPs 1837–1841 Feversham, B2
William William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...
Ultra-Tory MPs