VERE, Sir Charles Broke (1779-1843), of Scotland Yard, Whitehall, London and Broke Hall, Nacton, Suffolk

Vere, a highly decorated soldier, represented his native Suffolk from 1835 until his death eight years later. Educated at Ipswich School alongside his elder brother Rear-Admiral Sir Philip Bowes Vere Broke, to whom he was especially close, he was commissioned ensign in the 5^th Foot in 1796.1E. M. Lloyd, ‘Vere, Sir Charles Broke (1779-1843)’, rev. R. T. Stearn, Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com. Following three years at the Royal Military College (Sandhurst), he quickly distinguished himself as a highly capable soldier, though his early experiences of battle were somewhat traumatic.2http://archive.sandhurstcollection.co.uk/view/7025/120591/. In 1805 his ship the Elbe was wrecked on the Dutch coast and taken prisoner. Two years later he was an assistant quartermaster-general during the disastrous attack on Buenos Aires. In 1809 he went to the Peninsula, where, according to one eye-witness account, he was ‘severely wounded’ during the assault on Badajoz.3United Service Magazine (1834), pt. III, 55. It was later noted that he never fully recovered from his injuries.4Ipswich Journal, 8 Apr. 1843. During the campaigns of 1813-14 he was employed on the headquarters staff and was made knight commander of the Order of the Bath, 2 Jan. 1815.5London Gazette, 4 Jan. 1815. At Waterloo, following the death of Sir William How de Lancey, Wellington made Broke quartermaster-general. The two men remained friends and in 1825, on Wellington’s recommendation, he was appointed aide-de-camp to the king.6Lloyd, ‘Vere, Sir Charles Broke’, Oxf. DNB. In 1822, in compliance with the will of his kinsman John Vere, of Thorp, Norwich, he had taken the surname Vere.7London Gazette, 3 Aug. 1822.

By 1830 Vere had established himself as a prominent figure in Suffolk Conservative politics. He seconded Sir Thomas Gooch’s nomination at the 1830 general election, and was mooted as a possible anti-Reform candidate in 1831, though sensing that success was unlikely, he ultimately declined to come forward.8HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 34-5; Diary of John Longe (1765-1834), Vicar of Coddenham, ed. M. Stone, (2008), 17-18. At the 1832 general election, however, he accepted a requisition from over 1,350 electors to stand for the newly-created division of Suffolk East.9Essex Standard, 1 Dec. 1832; Morning Post, 1 Dec. 1832. He presented himself as a zealous supporter of agricultural protection and attacked the Whig government for submitting ‘to the will of the Political Unions’. Noticeably equivocal on the abolition of slavery, he gave his support to the measure in principle but insisted that ‘care must be taken to avoid doing injustice to the white’.10Bury and Norwich Post, 12, 19 Dec. 1832. He was defeated in third place by over 200 votes. He remained, though, a prominent political figure in Suffolk, and in 1834 published The danger of opening ports to foreign corn at a fixed duty considered. After accepting a requisition to stand once again, he informed Wellington that he would do all in his ‘power to give support to a government from which alone we can now hope for any safety from total anarchy’.11Vere to Wellington, 7 Dec. 1834, Wellington: political correspondence, ed. J. Brooke and J. Gandy (1975), ii. 170. A concerted effort by the local Conservative hierarchy to improve party organisation put Vere in a much stronger position at the 1835 general election, and following an extremely bitter contest in which he called for a repeal of the malt duty, he was comfortably elected in second place.12Bury and Norwich Post, 26 Dec. 1832, 14 Jan. 1835; Parliamentary test book (1835), 162.

A frequent attender, Vere followed Peel into the division lobby on most major issues. He voted with the Conservative ministry on the speakership, 19 Feb. 1835, the address, 26 Feb. 1835, and against Irish church appropriation, 2 Apr. 1835, the issue which brought down Peel’s short-lived administration. Thereafter he was a consistent opponent of the Whig ministry’s Irish policy. He spoke occasionally and succinctly in his first Parliament, mainly on his twin interests of agriculture and the military. He pressed the government to take into account the burden that local taxation placed on rural workers, 14 Apr. 1835, and intervened briefly to back Chandos’s motion on agricultural distress, 27 Apr. 1836. Extremely wary of any proposed alteration to the corn laws, he questioned the wisdom of George Robinson’s motion to allow the admission of foreign grain to be ground for re-exportation, 21 Mar. 1837, and subsequently poured scorn on Henry Clay’s accusation that Members representing agricultural constituencies repeatedly opposed measures that were advantageous to commercial and shipping interests, 3 May 1837. He attacked proposals to reduce army salaries, 6 Apr. 1837, and drawing on his own first-hand experience, defended the conduct of the British army at Buenos Aires in 1807, 10 May 1837. A staunch churchman, he also opposed the Whig ministry’s Jewish disabilities bill, arguing that the measure was ‘pregnant with danger to the established church’, 15 Aug. 1836. He sat on select committees on the Carlow election petition, privileges and the highway rates bill.13PP 1836 (89), xi. 2; PP 1837 (45), xiii. 212; PP 1837 (457), xx. 343. He later sat on select committees on the Roxborough election petition, PP 1837-38 (152-I), xx. 228, and shipwrecks of timber ships, PP 1839 (33), ix. 224.

At the 1837 general election Vere underlined his commitment to the established church, declaring that a ‘Christian legislature’ was ‘the only guarantee for the pure spirit of Christianity pervading our religion and laws’, and berated the Whig government for failing the agriculturalists.14Ipswich Journal, 29 July 1837. Returned unopposed, he remained implacably opposed to any change in the corn laws. He also voted against the equalisation of the borough and county franchises, 4 June 1839, the abolition of capital punishment, 5 Mar. 1840, and, unsurprisingly, the Maynooth grant, 23 June 1840. A less frequent attender in his second Parliament, he made only a handful of known interventions, mainly on military issues. He urged a reform of promotions in the marines, 27 Feb. 1838, and, speaking in support of the mutiny bill, warned against any weakening of discipline in the army from ‘mistaken notions of humanity’, 26 Mar. 1838.

Having voted for Peel’s motion of no confidence in the Whig ministry, 4 June 1841, Vere renewed his vitriolic attacks on the government at the subsequent general election, describing Melbourne’s ministry as a ‘disgrace to England’. He also questioned the validity of introducing a fixed duty on corn.15Standard, 10 July 1841; Norwich and Bury Post, 14 July 1841. He was comfortably returned in second place, seeing off his Whig challenger by just under 1,400 votes. His third and final Parliament, however, was uneventful, with his dwindling attendance reflecting an inexorable decline in health. He voted against Villiers’ motion to end all duties on corn, 24 Feb. 1842, and, still obstinate in his opinions regarding any alteration in the corn laws, he opposed Peel’s sliding scale on corn duties, 9 Mar 1842. He made two known short interventions in debate, both relating to local matters. He defended the Saxmundham Agricultural Association against Thomas Milner Gibson’s accusation that, at a recent dinner, the organisation had deliberately insulted the queen by reserving a greater number of toasts for the queen dowager, 27 Sept. 1841. Following the suspension of Ipswich’s writ, he spoke in hope of the borough’s electorate being represented ‘as speedily as possible’, 23 May 1842.

Vere died in harness whilst visiting Bath in April 1843. He was remembered as a diligent parliamentarian and a progressive landlord.16Gent. Mag. (1843), i. 654. Having never married, he died without issue. His correspondence is held by the Suffolk Record Office.17Suff. RO HA61.