Born at Netheravon House, Wiltshire, Hicks-Beach came from a mercantile family ‘of ancient lineage’, whose rise to political prominence began with Sir Michael Hicks (1543-1612), secretary to the lord treasurer, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who purchased an estate at Beverston in Gloucestershire.1Dublin University Magazine, 85:510 (June 1875), 654. Hicks-Beach’s grandfather Michael Hicks (1760-1830) inherited land from his childless second cousin and assumed the additional surname of Beach upon acquiring his father-in-law’s large estate in Wiltshire in June 1790. He also purchased Williamstrip Park, thus acquiring a considerable interest in the borough of Cirencester, for which he sat, 1794-1818.2Gent. Mag. (1830), i. 274-5. Hicks-Beach’s father inherited these substantial estates which consisted of more than 11,000 acres of land in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, while his uncle, William (1783-1856), sat in the Commons for Malmesbury, 1812-7, where, like his father, he exercised a large degree of independence.3J. Bateman, The Great Landowners of Great Britain (4th edn., 1883), 31; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 194-6.
Having taken possession of his father’s estates, Hicks-Beach married in August 18324His firstborn son Ellis Henry died an infant on 11 Feb. 1837, and an infant daughter, Maria, died on 22 Nov. 1843. Neither are recorded in Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage: Morning Post, 16 Feb. 1837, 16 Sept., 25 Nov. 1843. but declined an invitation to stand in the Conservative interest for East Gloucestershire. He succeeded his great-uncle Sir William Hicks, a benevolent landlord and ‘a firm and active supporter of Tory principles’, as 8th baronet in October 1834.5Morning Post, 16 Aug. 1832; Bristol Mercury, 28 July 1832, quoting Cheltenham Journal; Gent. Mag. (1835), i. 206. At the 1837 general election he proposed Charles William Codrington for East Gloucestershire and was presented to the queen by viscount Barrington in May 1838.6Bristol Mercury, 5 Aug. 1837; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 10 May 1838. He was appointed high sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1840 and was a spokesman for the county’s protectionists, dismissing Sir Robert Peel’s offer of compensation to landowners in February 1846 as ‘an insult to the understanding of sensible men’ and ‘a downright humbug’.7Morning Post, 10 Feb. 1846. He joined the provisional committee of the Oxford, Witney, Cheltenham and Gloucester Independent Railway in 1845.8Standard, 6 Aug. 1845. In September 1852 he chaired a meeting of the East Gloucestershire registration committee which had been convened to counter Liberal designs on the county, and thus save the country ‘from the despotism of democracy’.9Standard, 31 Jan. 1840, 6 Sept. 1852.
Although he was a leading and ‘deservedly popular’ member of the Conservative party in Gloucestershire, Hicks-Beach professed that he ‘never had any ambition to come forward as a public man’. However, upon the elevation of the marquess of Worcester to the peerage he agreed to stand for East Gloucestershire in November 1853 upon ‘those old Conservative principles which he had always professed’.10Standard, 22 Nov. 1853; Morning Chronicle, 25 Nov. 1853. He accepted on the understanding ‘that his liability for the necessary expenses should not exceed 1,000l .’: Daily News, 28 Nov. 1853. He declared his ‘sincere attachment’ to the constitution and ‘those Protestant institutions’ which he regarded as ‘the best guarantee of religious liberty and intellectual freedom’. However, his pledges to aid ‘all such practical reforms and improvements as can be safely adopted’, and ‘advance the proper education and happiness of the people at large’ prompted his Liberal opponent to quip ‘that he could himself have signed that address’.11Morning Post, 29 Nov. 1853; Morning Chronicle, 14 Dec. 1853. Hicks-Beach also accepted that free trade was now the order of the day and ‘hoped to see that principle carried out still further, and extended to all parties’. He was personally popular with the hill farmers of the region, who he insisted ‘were in point of integrity and honesty equal to any class of men in the kingdom’. He was returned by a large majority in January 1854, and declared that although he was ‘a Conservative in the true sense of the word’, he would ‘go to parliament free and independent’, prepared to stand ‘above all extreme party or personal considerations’ in order to support ‘good measures, from whatever quarter’ they came. Despite having expressed ‘no wish to offer any factious opposition to the present Government’, Hicks-Beach’s victory over a ministerial candidate was represented by the Conservative press as a timely rebuke to the Aberdeen coalition.12The Times, 10 Jan. 1854; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 7, 14 Jan. 1854; Standard, 16 Jan. 1854.
During his brief time in the Commons Hicks-Beach does not appear to have spoken, sat on any committees or introduced any bills, but he was a regular attender. A ‘staunch member of the church of England’, he ‘considered religion should be the basis of all education’, and voted for the Manchester and Salford education bill, 21 Feb. 1854.13The Times, 10 Jan. 1854. He supported the second reading of the payment of wages bill, 15 Mar., and divided against the settlement and removal bill, 24, 27 Mar. Having attended the speaker’s dinner, 8 Apr., he opposed the referral of the Oxford University bill to a select committee, 27 Apr., supported an increase in the malt tax, 9 May, and voted for the chimney sweepers bill, 19 May.14Daily News, 10 Apr. 1854; Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 20 May 1854. He presented a petition from Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire, for the closure of public houses on Sundays, and opposed the abolition of church rates, 23 May, and the oaths bill, 25 May.15Morning Chronicle, 16 May 1854.
Hicks-Beach died suddenly in November 1854. He was succeeded by his eldest son Michael Hicks-Beach (1837-1916), MP for East Gloucestershire, 1864-85, and Bristol West, 1885-1906, who became a prominent Conservative politician and was created Earl St. Aldwyn in 1915.16Examiner, 25 Nov. 1854; Morning Post, 25 Nov. 1854. His younger son, William Frederick (1841-1923), sat for the Tewkesbury division of Gloucestershire, 1916-8.17Stenton & Lee, Who’s Who of British MPs, ii. 117. The great window of the north transept of Gloucester Cathedral was erected by his eldest son in his memory.18British Architecture, 5:124 (12 May 1876), 248.