Abercromby wrote of himself in 1820: ‘As to my own fortune it is that of a younger brother and consists mainly in the fruits of my own industry’. He had the asset of being ‘singularly intelligent’. A contemporary of Francis Horner and Henry Brougham at Edinburgh high school, he completed his education in England. Soon after his call to the bar he was admired for ‘his spirit and independence’ at a legal club at the Crown and Anchor tavern in London. He practised in Chancery, becoming, through his father’s friendship with Lord Loughborough, a commissioner of bankrupts. He was probably the ‘Mr Abercromby’ suggested to Lord Grenville by Lord Henry Petty in May 1806 as fit to be a commissioner of accounts. He broke with his family’s politics by joining the Whig Club on 5 May 1807 and four days later was returned to Parliament, by his sister-in-law’s brother-in-law Lord Carrington, for Midhurst. He went on to join Brooks’s Club on 26 Apr. 1808. Thus in his first Parliament he was a committed member of the Whig opposition. Sir Samuel Romilly wrote of him, 15 June 1808:
I have the highest opinion of Abercromby and I think him likely to render most essential service to the country. He has a very enlightened mind, an excellent understanding, very just principles of political economy, an independent spirit and a warm love of liberty and he has the more merit, because all his connexions are Tories. If I do not mistake, his brother married a daughter of Lord Melville.
Chatsworth mss, Abercromby to Devonshire, 11 Jan. 1820; NLS mss 13335, W. to G. Elliot, 10 Dec. 1812; Brougham and his Early Friends, i. 105; HMC Fortescue, viii. 159; Romilly, Mems. ii. 251.
Abercromby first spoke against the Irish insurrection bill, 24 July 1807. On 15 Feb. 1808 his motion for particulars of the negotiation with Portugal in 1806 was objected to in part by Canning, who carried his point by 142 votes to 82. Abercromby voted for Whitbread’s peace resolution, 29 Feb., and deplored the Copenhagen expedition, 21 Mar. He invariably supported Irish Catholic relief. He opposed the Scottish judges’ pensions, 4 May, particularly their award to barons of the Exchequer, 2 June 1808, and objected to the copyright bill, 17, 22 June. The first subject that appealed to him, however, was the problem of penal reform; in this he was a coadjutor of Romilly. On 15 June 1808 he expressed his hostility to transportation to Botany Bay for limited periods and promised to move for inquiry next session: in fact he postponed it again, 26 May 1809, on the understanding that ministers were reviewing the situation. On 18 Jan. 1809 he was one of the Whigs meeting to endorse Ponsonby’s leadership. He was an interrogator in the Duke of York’s case and voted against Perceval on 17 Mar. In the debate on the Bankruptcy Laws he suggested from his own experience that the bankruptcy commissioners should be given sufficient remuneration to spare them from other legal pursuits, 29 Mar. On 27 Apr. he failed in a bid to secure information for the purpose of clearing the name of Sir John Moore, by 62 to 37. He voted for Hamilton’s motion on ministerial corruption on 25 Apr., but not for Madocks’s on 11 May; he explained this, 12 June, by reference to his hopes of the House ‘purging itself’ through Curwen’s reform bill. He opposed that bill as amended, but did not vote for Burdett’s reform motion on 15 June. He took an interest in the Scottish judicature bill and complained of the delay in implementing it, 13 June. Later that year Creevey, a more rebellious Whig who found him unwilling to talk politics with him, reported Abercromby as prophesying that ‘the present reign will end quietly from the popularity of the King, but that when it ends the profligacy and unpopularity of all the Princes, with the situation of the country as to financial difficulties, and the rapidly and widely extended growth of Methodism will produce a storm’.
Abercromby was commended by Lord Henry Petty to Lord Holland, 4 Oct. 1809, as being ‘admirably fitted for any of the secondary departments, and to be relied upon in every sense’, if opposition took office. He assisted Lord Grenville in his canvass to become chancellor of Oxford University. He was one of the young Whigs eager for a coalition with Canning, whose conduct he did not wish to see indicted in the Edinburgh Review. Despite reports to the contrary, he favoured a continuation of Ponsonby’s leadership.
Since September 1811 Abercromby had known that it was certainly not convenient and probably not congenial to Carrington to return him again for Midhurst, and had taken advantage of the 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne’s offer to return him for Calne. As Romilly was not sure of a seat, Whig gossip accounted for the preference through Abercromby’s father’s ‘old connection’ or through the likelihood that the Duke of Norfolk would accommodate Romilly rather than Abercromby. Lansdowne’s moderate Whig views were very like Abercromby’s, which were already not advanced enough for his friend Brougham, with whom he had not seen eye to eye on the likelihood of war with the United States, believing the repeal of the orders in council sufficient to remove grievances. They further disagreed as to Brougham’s championship of the Princess of Wales, in which Abercromby would have no part.
Abercromby resumed his opposition to the banknote bill in debate, 14 Dec. 1812, alleging that it was proving an obstacle to the financing of the Peninsular war, though designed to further it. He was a critic of the creation of a vice-chancellor to Eldon, 15 Feb. 1813, and wished to be sure of the new officer’s exclusion from the House. He complained of the obstruction met with by the committee inquiring into delays in Chancery, 11 Mar., and championed Romilly’s privately stealing bill, 26 Mar. Admitting that he was ‘no very zealous advocate for parliamentary reform’, he nevertheless wished for a proper investigation of improper influence (the Duke of Cumberland’s) in the Weymouth election, 1, 7 Apr. He objected to the substitution of a £10 for a 40s. franchise if Helston were reformed, 30 June, and the same day opposed the reception of a printed petition in favour of reform. He was in the chair at the committee stage of the Catholic relief bill. He opposed the Admiralty registrars bill because of a faulty clause which, he claimed, would defeat its intention, 21 May, 8 June. The state of New South Wales continued to exercise him, 23 June. On 30 June he approved Whitbread’s call for peace negotiations. He supported the stipendiary curates bill, 5, 8 July, and attempted to safeguard the parity of presbyterian ministers in India, 8 July.
Abercromby supported Morpeth’s proceedings against the Speaker, 8 Nov, 1813. He joined with Horner in opposing the continuation of legislation against machine breakers, 29 Nov. and 6 Dec., which prompted Lord Grey to remark ‘there are no two men whose success in the H[ouse] of Commons would give me greater pleasure’.
In January 1816 Abercromby assisted Tierney in mustering the opposition during their leader Ponsonby’s absence.
Abercromby attended the pre-sessional meeting of the Whigs at Ponsonby’s house in January 1817 and was one of those who were cautious about parliamentary reform. He suggested that the subject should be confined that session to the Scottish burghs. Nevertheless, he did not object to Burdett’s presentation of a reform petition from Halifax, 31 Jan.: he objected only to disrespectful petitions, 12 Mar. He opposed the seditious meetings bill, 28 Mar., and on 23 June denounced the renewed suspension of habeas corpus. On 6 May he was in the minority against Canning’s Lisbon embassy, but indicated that he exonerated Canning himself. On Ponsonby’s death he could not think of any replacement for him as leader: ‘Those who are fit will not accept the honour, and those who would accept it are not fit’. His relations with Brougham were particularly uneasy at this time; it was largely on his account that he declined being one of two Members to monitor the newly launched Whig evening paper. Brougham was bitter because he regarded Abercromby as the ringleader of a squad of Lansdowne Whigs prepared to counter his activities in Parliament, who ‘grumble at everything’ and ‘plainly wish several of us ... at the devil that they may get into office’.
Abercromby was teller against the secret committee on sedition revived on 5 Feb. 1818. He supported inquiry into the Scottish burghs, 13 Feb., but without reference to parliamentary reform. In March he and his colleague Macdonald were reported to be staying away from the House.
After the election of 1818 Abercromby pressed Tierney to accept the leadership of the opposition:
The public requires not only character but commanding and efficient talents. In truth you are the only person capable of taking the lead. If you decline no other person can be proposed who would have any chance of succeeding. ... The opposition is always an essential part of the government of this country, and at this time they may be considered as having a more important and difficult part to perform than the ministers. The public feeling is clearly very strong and it is not fixed upon any definite object. It seems to me to result from the diffusion of knowledge and wealth among the middling classes of society who are determined to assert their power and to have some share in the government of the country. If a proper direction is not given to this floating mass of activity, there will be a great danger of its producing mischief. It therefore belongs to the opposition to take the lead in giving a tone to this great body of the people, and if they do not erect a standard around which people may rally, they will lose not only a favourable opportunity of adding greatly to their own might and power, but they will be in danger of falling into contempt and of being considered as an incapable and useless body. What the standard should be I am not competent to say, but I know no one so sure of hitting off what will suit the feelings of the new and wavering members of Parliament as yourself, and although it is very difficult to please the people out of doors you will be the most likely person to convince and attach a great mass of the more reasonable and sober people. Much good could be done if the people could be convinced that the measures of which they complain have been entirely produced by the ministers and are not to be computed to any defect in the constitution. I wish they could be persuaded that the constitution is free enough for any rational purpose, and that the real object of contention is to resist the invasion of ministers and to administer it as it ought to be administered, upon free and liberal principles. If we involve ourselves in any projects of extensive improvement we shall do no good whatever. I have seen enough since I have been in Parliament to teach me not to be sanguine as to the effect of any measures that may be prepared either for controlling our own heterogeneous body, or for attaching the public to our cause ... I shall be most impatient to know your decision for I consider your acceptance as the only measure that can revive my interest in our proceedings and I am sure that there are very many other persons who feel as I do.
Hants RO, Tierney mss 1a.
Tierney’s acceptance was offset by Romilly’s suicide: ‘I have never been more affected by any event’, wrote Abercromby. He supported the pretensions of George Lamb as Romilly’s successor in the Westminster constituency.
On 3 Feb. 1819 he was named to the secret committee on the Bank. On 25 May he informed the House that he had always supported the resumption of cash payments and regretted that it had not been adopted in 1816. He saw eye to eye with Lansdowne, rather than Tierney, on the question.
‘I hate anything done at Manchester, and in consequence, by both sides, and for nothing do I hate it more than for being the cause of Parliament meeting’, Abercromby informed Lord Holland, 18 Oct. 1819. He disliked county meetings on the subject, preferring to have it discussed in the House. He had been in the midlands and thought that the unrest was being underestimated in the south. As to the amenability of the Yorkshire radicals to Whig grandee leadership:
If the Whig lords and radicals can successfully reform the state, they will do a great service. The attempt is not without danger. I wish them success, but is the experiment not without examples in history? I hope that they may be able to avert the fate which has more than once arrested their predecessors in such a career.
Add. 51574, Abercromby to Holland, 14 Sept., 11, 18 Oct.; 51584, Tierney to same, 15 Sept. [1819].
To John Allen he confided a week later that he saw no prospects for a plan of reform now. ‘In truth it appears to me that for the present there is nothing left to the Whigs but to endeavour to moderate the measures of ministers.’ For his part, in the face of violence, he must take sides ‘with those who are disposed to defend the constitution as it has been and is’. He was understood, therefore, before Parliament met, to be prepared not to oppose a reasonable restriction on public meetings and to be at one with Lansdowne on this: but he voted with opposition on the address and urged his young employer the Duke of Devonshire to do the same.
Abercromby remained a Lansdowne Whig and gave up his employments on taking office in 1827. His subsequent relations with the orthodox Whigs were strained; by 1834 Lord Grey regarded him as a ‘perfect humbug’. The solution of making him Speaker, for which his ‘peculiar solemnity’ seemed to fit him, proved a failure.