LITTLETON, Edward Richard (1815-1888), of Teddesley Park, Staffordshire; Hatherton Hall, Staffordshire

A Whig, Littleton was much less of a political animal than his father Edward John Littleton (1791-1863), MP for Staffordshire 1812-1832, South Staffordshire 1832-1835 and 1st baron Hatherton, with whom he had an uneasy relationship. An important political figure in Staffordshire with good connections among Whig parliamentary leaders, Hatherton was ambitious for his only son. Littleton was rumoured as a possible Liberal candidate for South Staffordshire in 1837 and at the 1841 general election could probably have been elected for Walsall had he been willing to support the total repeal of the corn laws.1Hatherton Journal, 10, 24 July 1837, Staffordshire Record Office, D1178/1; 21, 22, 26 June 1841, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/22. Instead he helped to secure the election of another Liberal, whom he succeeded at the 1847 general election.

Littleton had little enthusiasm for a political career, but it offered an escape from his overbearing father, as he wrote shortly after his election:

I do not much fancy I shall like my Parliamentary life – I am bodily active & mentally idle, & fear I shall never overcome the latter defect.

However, though the sacrifice is great, … I still believe I have done the right thing as regards the future. I dread the dependence of living at Teddesley, …

I cannot overcome my repugnance to my father’s manner when he is not in the most perfect good humour – I dread talking to him on any subject, as one never knows what bitter, or biting thing he may say. In fact, I am not myself in his society, & like a snail, shut myself up in a shell.2Edward Richard Littleton Journal, 18 Nov. 1847, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/100.

A Whig supporter of Lord John Russell’s government, Littleton endorsed further Catholic relief, 8 Dec. 1847, but divided against the introduction of a Jewish disabilities bill ‘& was one of very few “Liberals” who did so’.3Littleton Journal, 11 Feb. 1848, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/100. He opposed radical political reforms, but supported the repeal of the navigation laws in 1849. He much preferred Sir Robert Peel’s ‘statesmanlike’ speeches to the ‘frothy’ style of Benjamin Disraeli.4Edward Richard Littleton to Lord Hatherton, 10 June 1848, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/27/18. Littleton only spoke once, on the Severn navigation bill, 23 Apr. 1849, but served on a number of important committees in his first spell in the Commons.5Hansard, 23 Apr. 1849, vol. 104, c. 621. These included 1850 enquiries on county financial boards and savings as well as the 1851 committee on church rates.6PP 1850 (468), xiii. 2; 1850 (508), xix. 170; 1851 (541), ix. 2. He also took an interest in railway legislation, such as the Worcester & Hereford railway bill, which affected the Staffordshire and Worcester Canal, in which his father was a shareholder.7Littleton to Hatherton, 26 Feb. 1852, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/27/24.

On the militia bill, which precipitated the fall of the Whig ministry, 20 Feb. 1852, Littleton, generally a Liberal loyalist, ‘took Ld Palmerston’s view of the subject, but being unwilling to vote against Ld John [Russell], did not vote at all, & consequently was not in the House when Ld John expressed his determination to resign’.8Littleton to Hatherton, 20 Feb. 1852, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/27/24. Littleton attended the meeting of Liberal MPs at Russell’s house, 11 Mar. 1852, which determined to challenge the new Derby ministry ‘on the question of Free Trade’, but by this time he had already decided to retire at the general election, which followed in June.9Littleton to Hatherton, 11 Mar. 1852, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/27/24.

Littleton returned to the House the following year after being elected unopposed for South Staffordshire. Although he was too ill to attend the nomination, 15 Aug. 1853, he promised to give ‘independent support’ to Aberdeen’s coalition, and singled out Gladstone’s recent budget for special praise.10The Times, 16 Aug. 1853. Littleton was much less active in his second spell in Parliament. He was increasingly preoccupied with his militia duties, which took him to Ireland for lengthy periods.11Littleton Journal, Nov. 1854-July 1858, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/101. Littleton voted in just over a quarter of the divisions in the 1856 session, but other than sponsoring a bill to amend the Truck Act (1854), which was referred to a committee, and serving on an inquiry on the rating of mines (1856) he seems to have been absent or inactive.12PP 1854 (21), v. 423-8; 1856 (346), xvi. 3; J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck (1857), 18. He missed the vote on Roebuck’s motion which brought down Aberdeen’s government, 29 Jan. 1855, but opposed later censures of Palmerston’s prosecution of the war, 25 May, 19 July 1855.

In early 1857 Littleton became gravely ill with ‘Rheumatic Gout’, which caused ‘some formidable swellings, with large nodules in the calves of his legs’.13Hatherton Journal, 11 Feb. 1857, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/71. Although Littleton’s wife wanted him to remain in Parliament, he eventually retired at the general election in March, when his father sadly noted that ‘for three years the S. Division of Staffordshire has been virtually misrepresented’.14Hatherton Journal, 23 Feb. 1857, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/71. Hatherton privately complained that his son had never appreciated his efforts on his behalf: ‘Edward’s seat has cost me at various times almost as much as my own did – and he knows nothing of it’.15Hatherton Journal, 11 Mar. 1857, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/71.

Littleton was well enough to nominate one of the Liberal candidates in South Staffordshire at the 1859 general election, but thereafter was increasingly anxious about the financial problems he would inherit from his father.16Littleton Journal, 3 Apr. 1859, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/102. He discovered that Hatherton’s steward had embezzled £9,000 from the estate over a twenty year period.17Littleton Journal, 10 Aug. 1859, 8 Sept. 1859, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/102; Littleton to Hatherton, 12 Oct. 1859, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/27/34. In 1860 Littleton was astonished to learn that he would inherit an ‘enormous’ debt of £220,000 from his father.18The debts amounted to £70,000 on the Hatherton estate, £60,000 on the Walsall estate and £90,000 on the entailed Teddesley estate: Littleton Journal, 14 May 1860, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/102. Littleton was especially bitter that when he came of age his father had persuaded him to give his consent to raising a £100,000 mortgage on the entailed Teddesley estate.19Littleton Journal, 29 Dec. 1861-25 Jan. 1862, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/102. Shortly before his father’s death in 1863 Littleton wrote that ‘those who succeed me will suffer by the financial mismanagement of the last fifty years’.20Littleton Journal, 17 Oct. 1862, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/103. On his death in 1888, Littleton was succeeded as 3rd baron Hatherton by his eldest son Edward George Percy Littleton (1842-1930), chairman of Staffordshire quarter sessions, 1894-1924, and of Staffordshire county council, 1901-20.21Burke’s peerage (1949), 967.