WILBRAHAM, George (1779-1852), of Delamere Lodge, nr. Northwich, Cheshire and Upper Seymour Street, London, Mdx.

Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Cheshire Whig Club in 1821, Wilbraham claimed that ‘from his earliest infancy’ he had been encouraged to look to Lord Crewe, a confidante of Charles James Fox and the county’s MP from 1768-1802, ‘as a model for imitation’.1The Times, 21 Oct. 1821. He managed a decade as one of the county’s MPs before being ousted by the local Conservatives, who took to castigating him as the ‘patron saint’ of ‘Popery and Dissent’ on account of his uncompromising support for church and tithe reform.2The Times,12 Oct. 1837.

Remembered as ‘very touchy’ and ‘extremely irrascible’ by the diarist Lady Elizabeth Westminster, Wilbraham was the son of an unsuccessful politician who had sat fleetingly on the family interest for Bodmin from 1789-90 before making way for a more talented younger brother.3G. Huxley, Lady Elizabeth and the Grosvenors. Life in a Whig family, 1822-39 (1965), 102; HP Commons, 1754-90, iii. 637-8; HP Commons, 1790-1820, v. 576. One year after inheriting his father’s Cheshire estates in 1813, Wilbraham had boosted his family’s political status by marrying the sister of Lord Ebrington, a leading Whig backbencher.4The Times, 13 Oct. 1821. An active member of the Cheshire Whig Club in the 1820s, and a fierce proponent of parliamentary reform, he had sat for Stockbridge on the interest of the immensely wealthy marquess of Westminster as a Whig from 1826, before transferring to the county in 1831 as a supporter of the Grey ministry’s reform bill.5HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 767-70

At the 1832 general election Wilbraham stood for the newly created division of Cheshire South, where he was a substantial landowner. He had recently fallen out with the Westminsters over the costs of local jurisdiction, and his candidature further exacerbated tensions with that family, who had come to resent him as an ungrateful upstart.6Huxley, Lady Elizabeth, 102. A fierce contest with Westminster’s heir Lord Grosvenor and a local Conservative ensued, during which Wilbraham declared his support for the existing corn laws, but courted the ‘popular’ vote by attacking slavery, tithes and the East India Company’s monopoly and calling for church reform. He topped the poll comfortably.7Ibid., 102; Chester Courant, 14, 25 Dec. 1832.

A fairly regular attender, Wilbraham gave steady support to the Grey ministry on most major issues, although he frequently acted with his prominent brother-in-law Ebrington in pushing for more extensive reforms of the church and sinecure system. He lost little time in denouncing the appointment of Welsh bishops who were ignorant of the ‘native’ language, 4 Mar. 1833, and regularly spoke and presented petitions in support of Welsh church reform and Dissenters’ grievances.8Hansard, 4 Mar. 1833, vol. 16, cc. 109-110; 19 Apr. 1833, vol. 17, cc. 322-23. Adopting a more cautious stance over proposals to regulate child labour in factories, he contended that only a full inquiry would do justice to owners as well as children, 22 Mar., 5 July 1833. On 22 July 1833, in what initiated a long-running campaign, he unsuccessfully tried to abolish the East India Company’s monopoly over salt production, arguing that ‘the salt of Cheshire, which was the best in the world, might be sent to Calcutta and sold for a much less sum than the salt made in India’.9Hansard, 22 July 1833, vol. 19, cc. 1069-70. Breaking ranks with both the ministry and Ebrington, he voted in the radical minorities for a scrutiny of government pensions, 28 Feb. 1834, and their reduction, 12 May 1834, and was credited with another radical vote for shorter parliaments, 15 May 1834, although he remained opposed to the secret ballot. Whether or not earlier problems with the reporting of his votes had been resolved is not entirely clear. In June 1833 he had written to The Times, protesting that contrary to their lists he had voted in the minorities in support of Irish church appropriation, 21 June 1833, and Hume’s radical motion for the abolition of army and navy sinecures, 14 Feb. 1833. ‘I mention this as proof of the general incorrectness of the published lists, and how ignorant or inattentive those gentlemen are who undertake to furnish them’, he had declared.10The Times, 25 June 1833. He was in the majority against lowering the corn duties, 17 May 1833, 7 Mar. 1834, but broke with many landed MPs over the remedy for agricultural distress, 21 Feb. 1834, insisting that it was local taxes, such as poor rates and tithes, that bore most heavily on farmers rather than government taxes, and rejecting calls for the repeal of the malt tax.

At the 1835 general election Wilbraham stood his ground in South Cheshire as a ‘constitutional reformer’, who considered ‘some reform’ of the established church ‘essentially necessary’.11Morning Chronicle, 21 Jan. 1835. Attempts by Grosvenor, who had retired, to bring in a replacement and prevent Wilbraham from walking over with a Conservative opponent came to nothing, leaving Wilbraham to be returned unopposed as part of an electoral compromise between the county’s political leaders.12Huxley, Lady Elizabeth, 108. He voted against Peel’s short-lived ministry on the speakership, 19 Feb., address, 26 Feb., and appropriation issue which brought it down, 2 Apr. 1835, and gave steady support to the reinstated Whig administration thereafter, especially on matters relating to church and corporation reform. Resuming his campaign against the salt monopoly in India, he successfully secured an inquiry on the issue with support from the radical MP Joseph Hume, 3 Mar. 1836.13The Times, 4 Mar. 1836. On 14 June 1836 he brought up the report of the Cheshire and Manchester junction railway bill.

Rumours that Wilbraham would be raised to the peerage in 1837 came to nothing and at that year’s general election he was opposed by two Conservatives.14Morning Post, 3 July 1837; Blackburn Standard, 5 July 1837. Attempts by a prominent Tory vicar to portray him as a ‘revolutionary radical’ and supporter of the ‘monstrous and inhuman poor law act’ were widely reported in the press but backfired after Wilbraham pointed out that both the vicar and one of the Conservative candidates served as local workhouse guardians, sharing responsibility for ‘any hardship to the poor’. Citing his belief in the necessity of pacifying Ireland, he strongly defended his backing for Irish church reform and noted that ‘he had recorded votes in opposition to ministers’, but had ‘generally supported them from conviction’. Despite the ‘most disgusting libels’ being circulated against him, he was returned in second place.15Morning Chronicle, 7 Aug. 1837; Manchester Times, 12 Aug. 1837.

In his final parliament Wilbraham gave steady support to the government of Lord Melbourne, who became a regular guest at his dining table and in 1839 appointed Ebrington as Irish viceroy.16Queen Victoria’s Journals, Royal Archives VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W), 22 June 1838, 25-27 Mar. 1839. He spoke in defence of the ministry over their inquiry into pensions, 8 Dec. 1837, and invariably backed them in the lobbies, although he voted for amendments limiting the powers of the poor law commissioners, 22, 29 Mar. 1841.17The Times, 9 Dec. 1841. At that year’s election he apparently considered retiring, but was ‘induced’ to offer again after some of the ‘wealthy Whigs’, including the marquess of Westminster, ‘clubbed a considerable sum of money’ towards his expenses.18Morning Post, 23 June 1841.

It has been suggested in a previous History of Parliament volume that Wilbraham’s defeat by two Conservatives at the 1841 general election resulted from his conversion to corn law repeal.19HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 770. Yet although his voting record was slightly irregular on this issue - he opposed Villiers’ motions to consider repeal, 15 Mar. 1838, 18 Mar. 1839, but was in the minority for hearing evidence against the laws at the bar of the House, 19 Feb. 1839 - he was no convert to free trade, having argued at some length that it would make corn supplies over-reliant on crops from countries of a similar latitude, 3 Apr. 1840.20Hansard, 3 Apr. 1840, vol. 53, cc. 512-3. On the hustings he reaffirmed his belief that ‘protection was due to the British farmer’, but also insisted that the Whigs’ proposals for a lower fixed duty would provide an ‘infinitely superior’ protection than the existing sliding scale.21Manchester Times, 17 July 1841. His support for the candidacy of the free trader Charles Towneley in the South Lancashire election, however, may have muddied the waters.22Liverpool Mercury, 25 June 1841.

Another issue that featured in the campaign was Wilbraham’s staunch opposition to an 1840 Act enabling established churches to be built in Cheshire using surplus funds from the river weaver tolls, which had hitherto been used to defray the local rates.23The Times, 13 July 1841. Wilbraham had opposed the measure, which was sponsored by his Conservative colleague Sir Philip Egerton, as unfair to local Dissenters and ‘an encroachment on the rights of the people’, infuriating local Tories and churchmen.24Hansard, 29 June 1840, vol. 55, cc. 193-4; Manchester Times, 17 July 1841. His election defeat, which was widely anticipated, triggered much ‘mob’ violence and he ‘prudently’ absented himself from the declaration, fearing further trouble. There were again false reports that he was about to be raised to the peerage.25Derby Mercury, 2 June 1841; The Times, 3 June, 19 July 1841.

Wilbraham offered but then declined to stand a poll in Cheshire South in 1847.26Chester Chronicle, 11, 25 June, 23 July 1847. He remained active on behalf of Cheshire’s salt producers in the campaign against the East India Company’s monopoly, chairing meetings of like-minded MPs in London and setting out the case for abolition in his 1847 pamphlet Thoughts on the Salt Monopoly in India.27The Times, 22 May 1847. He died in January 1852, extolled as ‘an honest and upright politician, reading the constitution according to the Whig commentary, with a liberal bias’.28Chester Chronicle, 31 Jan. 1852; Gent. Mag. (1852), i. 302. Under his will, proved at £52,000, his widow (d. 1866) retained a life interest in his London house in Lower Brook Street, Mayfair. The bulk of his estate and Delamere Lodge passed successively to his eldest son George Fortescue Wilbraham (1815-85) and second son Roger William Wilbraham (1817-97).29PROB 11/2155/534; IR26/1950/329.