HANBURY (afterwards HANBURY-KINCAID-LENNOX), Charles Spencer Bateman (1827-1912), of Shobdon Court, Leominster, Herefordshire; Kelmarsh, Northamptonshire and Lennox Castle, Lennoxtown, Dumbarton

Hanbury styled himself ‘of old Whig principles’ and as a ‘Liberal Conservative’, but was to all intents and purposes a loyal, if silent, supporter of the Conservative leadership throughout the 1850s and early 1860s.1Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1854), 197-8; ibid., (1859), 209. While his parliamentary performance was criticised, the Hereford Journal described him as ‘an experienced, sympathising and painstaking representative’.2Hereford Journal, 27 Oct. 1858. The most notable aspect of his political career was his 1861 marriage to Margaret, Viscountess Strangford, the wealthy widow of Disraeli’s former protégé George Smythe MP. The union prompted the Conservative leader to write:

Mrs D. presented her & launched her in society. She is a woman of ability sufficiently well-looking & has £8000 p[e]r ann[u]m. This month she marries Charles Hanbury, Bateman’s brother. Her first Husband was all Soul - her second all body. But I believe he is a good fellow, as well as good looking.3Benjamin Disraeli to Francis Villiers, 2 Oct. 1861, Benjamin Disraeli letters, eds. M. G. Wiebe et al (2009), viii. 142.

Hanbury’s father, William, MP for Northampton, 1810-18, had been created Baron Bateman by the Melbourne ministry in 1837 after inheriting the Bateman estates in Herefordshire.4HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 144-5. Hanbury’s elder brother, who succeeded as 2nd Baron in 1845, served as lord lieutenant of the county from 1852 until his death in 1901. Making his political debut at the 1852 general election, Hanbury stood for Herefordshire on a protectionist platform, while also stressing his Anglicanism and opposition to ‘papal aggression’.5Hereford Journal, 25 Feb. 1852. His family’s Whiggish reputation also helped boost his chances in a county where the representation had traditionally been shared between the parties. However, despite claims that Hanbury was an ‘avowed Whig’, he stood in tandem with two other Conservatives and successfully ousted the Liberal George Cornewall Lewis.6Ibid.

Hanbury’s Conservatism and protectionism was confirmed by his voting pattern in the following session, when he divided with the Derbyites in favour of Disraeli’s budget, while opposing Villiers’ free trade motion and Gladstone’s budget, 26 Nov., 16 Dec. 1852, 2 May 1853. His Protestant sympathies were displayed by his support for Spooner’s anti-Maynooth motion and his opposition to Jewish relief. He followed Disraeli in condemning Aberdeen and then Palmerston’s handling of the Crimean war, 29 Jan., 25 May, 19 July 1855, and was in the opposition majority that defeated Palmerston over Cobden’s Canton motion, 3 Mar. 1857. He voted in 67 (26%) out of 257 divisions in 1852-3, but only 16 (8%) out of 198 in 1856.7Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck (1857), 8.

Hanbury’s lacklustre parliamentary performance contributed to his defeat at the 1857 general election and his Canton vote did him few favours given Palmerston’s local popularity.8Hereford Times, 14, 21 Mar. 1857. His critics jibed that electors had foolishly rejected Lewis in favour of a political nonentity who never spoke in the House, while adding that Hanbury and his Conservative colleagues had done little to further the cause of protectionism which they had so noisily championed at the previous general election.9Hereford Journal, 11 Mar. 1857, 8 Apr. 1857; ‘A farmer’, letter, Hereford Times, 21 Mar. 1857. His brother’s dispute with a tenant was also presented unfavourably by his opponents.10Hereford Journal, 11 Mar. 1857.

Hanbury denied that the opposition to Palmerston, whom he described as a ‘chameleon’, was factious at the nomination. In his view the ‘old party barriers’ had been ‘broken up. The moderate Whigs of old, are now the Liberal Conservatives and the Liberals are now thorough Liberals, and not moderate as of yore’. Such an interpretation of contemporary politics allowed Hanbury to reconcile his party allegiance with the traditional principles of his family. Captain Hanbury, as he was generally known, was publicly mocked by his Liberal opponent, who dismissed Hanbury’s military experience as limited to parades in royal parks.11Hereford Journal, 1 Apr. 1857. Although he was beaten, the Liberal Hereford Times was forced to admit that he ‘bore himself in the struggle like a gallant soldier and a true gentleman’.12Hereford Times, 4 Apr. 1857.

Hanbury re-entered the House in October 1858 after being returned unopposed for Leominster, which was near his brother’s seat, Shobdon Court. Stating his belief that ‘every man is more or less liberal in his ideas’, Hanbury denied that the Liberal party had a monopoly on progressive measures, and indeed quipped that Palmerston was a ‘Liberal out of office and a Conservative in office’.13Hereford Times, 23 Oct. 1858, 14 Aug. 1858. He offered qualified support to Derby’s 1859 reform bill. As he explained to his constituents at the ensuing general election, when he was again returned unopposed, he did not favour the proposed disenfranchisement of urban freeholders or reducing Leominster to single member status. His assertion that the ‘only great united body in the House was the great Conservative party’ and that their Whig and Radical opponents could not form a government was swiftly disproved, however.14Hereford Journal, 4 May 1859.

Hanbury continued to vote with the Conservative leadership on all key party divisions during the early 1860s, and despite his progressive rhetoric on the hustings consistently opposed the various reform bills proposed by Liberal backbenchers. He does not appear to have spoken and the ‘Mr. Hanbury’ who served on the select committees on public institutions (1860), education of destitute children (1861) and open spaces (1865) was almost certainly Robert Hanbury, MP for Middlesex, 1857-67.15PP 1865 (178), viii. 260; 1865 (390), viii. 356. By the last date Hanbury had assumed the additional names of Kincaid-Lennox following his marriage in 1861. With his wife, he jointly succeeded to his late father-in-law’s 7,600 acre estate in Stirling.16J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. D. Spring (1971), 26.

Hanbury-Kincaid-Lennox retired at the 1865 general election, and unsuccessfully contested Leominster in 1875, but otherwise made no attempt to return to the House. He lived until 1912 and at his death without issue his personal estate of £15,065 passed to his second wife Rosa.17National Probate Calendar, 11 June 1912.