PAGET, Thomas Tertius (1807-1892), of Humberstone , near Leicester, Leicestershire

A wealthy Unitarian banker and landowner, Paget was a firm supporter of Gladstone during his brief spell in Parliament. His family had long possessed and farmed land in Ibstock, Leicestershire. His father, Thomas Paget, joined Pares’s county bank in 1800, married into the same family in 1807, and became a partner in 1824 before founding his own firm, Paget and Kirby.1C. Billson, Leicester Memoirs (1924), 22-23, 32; Burke’s landed gentry (1886), ii. 1409; Gent. Mag. (1863), ccxiv. 381-2; ‘Leicestershire’, HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 612-13; ‘Paget, Thomas’, ibid., vi. 613-15; W. White, History, gazetteer and directory of Leicestershire (1846), 438, 515; D. Wykes, ‘Banking in nineteenth-century Leicester’, Trans. of Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society (1996), lxx. 150-3 (at 153). The leader of Leicester’s independent party in municipal affairs, Thomas Paget senior unsuccessfully contested the county in 1830, but was triumphant as a reformer the following year, although he did not stand again at the 1832 general election.2‘Leicestershire’, HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 613; A. Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester: a history of Leicester, 1780-1850 (1954), 110-11, 180-1, 186-7, 197. His eldest son entered the family business in 1839, but did not seek municipal office, although he acted as treasurer to Leicester town council, 1862-78.3J. Storey, Historical Sketches of some of the principal works and undertakings of the council of the borough of Leicester (1895), 259. In 1852, Paget’s wife’s sister, Mrs. Talbot, was accused of ‘the most constant, shameless, public and audacious adultery’ by her husband, who left her in the charge of hired ruffians and prevented her family from seeing her or ascertaining her whereabouts. Paget enlisted the help of his barrister brother John (1811-98), and they eventually found her. The brothers tirelessly argued her cause in the press and the courts, but were unsuccessful in their attempt to prevent her husband obtaining a divorce.4The crux of the Pagets’ case was that Mrs. Talbot’s mistreatment had caused her to become insane by the time her husband won his crim. con. suit against her alleged lover, and was granted a decree of separation from an ecclesiastical court. (Before 1857, it was necessary to pass through these two stages before petitioning Parliament for a divorce). However, the Lord Delegates of Ireland upheld both verdicts in 1855, and the following year Talbot successfully petitioned Parliament for a divorce. T. Paget, Talbot vs. Talbot: a statement of the facts (1855), 1-22; idem, A letter to his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, on the judgement of the High Court of Delegates in the case of Talbot vs. Talbot (1856), 14; Burke’s landed gentry (1863), ii. 1475; M. Woodhouse, ‘The marriage and divorce bill of 1857’, American Journal of Legal History, 3 (1959), 260-75 (at 260-1). The brothers fell out following their father’s death and Paget’s succession as senior partner in the family bank in 1862, with John convinced that he had been swindled out of his inheritance.5R. Evans, ‘Fathers, sons and brothers: two Victorian families’, Trans. of Leics. Archaeological and Historical Society (1998), lxxii. 146-53 (at 152-3); Gent. Mag. (1863), i. 381-2.

His business credentials, landholdings and his late father’s popularity made Paget a formidable candidate for South Leicestershire, a constituency long controlled by the Conservatives. However, he bided his time and declined an invitation to stand for the Liberals at the 1865 general election.6The Times, 20 June 1865. On the death of a long-serving incumbent two years later, Paget seized his chance and was elected at a by-election ahead of a Conservative after fighting a vigorous campaign. Viewing the contest as a rehearsal for an imminent general election under a reformed and expanded franchise, he hoped that ‘the time is coming when party ties will again mean something’, with politics a rivalry between the followers of two men, Gladstone and Disraeli.7Pall Mall Gazette, 11 Nov. 1867. As a ‘decided adherent’ of the former, Paget declared his support for Irish disestablishment as well as Irish land reform, a ‘national system of education’, and the ‘entire and unconditional abolition’ of church rates.8The Times, 26 Nov. 1867.

In Parliament, Paget spoke in favour of elementary education and was confident that British workmen could hold their own against foreign competitors provided that a compulsory education rate was imposed and lessons were learnt from her ‘Continental neighbours’.9Hansard, 24 Mar. 1868, vol. 191, c. 185. He divided in favour of Gladstone’s resolutions on the Irish church. Paget, who does not appear to have attended any committees during the session, also supported proposed legislation on turnpike trusts, cattle markets and county financial boards, although he cavilled that the latter would be indirectly, rather than directly, elected and that the bill was permissive.10Hansard, 17 June 1868, vol. 192, c. 1722; ibid., 16 July 1868, vol. 193, c. 1296; ibid., 29 Apr. 1868, vol. 191, c.1555.

At the 1868 election Paget finished in third place behind two Conservatives. He unsuccessfully contested the same constituency in 1870 and 1874, but topped the poll at the 1880 general election and represented the new single-member southern division, 1885-86.11McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 167-68; ibid., pt. II, 148. On his death in 1892, the childless Paget, whose estate was sworn under £589,000, was succeeded by his nephews, and thereafter the family business was acquired by Lloyd’s bank.12Billson, Leicester memoirs, 33; Burke’s landed gentry (1906), 1276-77; F. Boase, Modern English Biography (1897), ii. 1307. A member of the Melton hunt, Paget had ‘few equals’ in ‘a swift run across country’.13Pall Mall Gazette, 17 Oct. 1892.