COOTE, Sir Charles Henry (1794-1864), of Ballyfin House, Mountrath, Queen’s co. and 5 Connaught Place, London, Mdx.

Coote was the descendant of Colonel Chidley Coote of Killester, the second son of the first family member to settle in Ireland, Sir Charles Coote (d. 1642) of Blownorton, Norfolk. He was the nephew of Charles Coote, 1^st earl of Bellomont, and grand-nephew of Sir Eyre Coote, the renowned military commander.1R. Armstrong, ‘Coote, Sir Charles’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, ii. 827-8; L. Lunney, ‘Coote, Charles (1738-1800)’, ibid., ii. 831-2; J. Quinn, ‘Coote, Sir Eyre (1726-83), ibid., ii. 833-4. Coote was therefore the great-grandson of the great-grandson of the first baronet: Gent. Mag. (1864), ii. 669. His wife was the maternal grand-daughter of John Meade, 1^st earl of Clanwilliam. Coote claimed to be the premier baronet of Ireland after succeeding to the Irish estates of his kinsman, the earl of Mountrath, in 1802.2G.E.C., Complete Peerage, ix. 361-2; Liverpool Mercury, 11 Oct. 1864; Standard, 12 Oct. 1864. He owned more than 47,000 acres in Queen’s County, along with smaller estates in Roscommon, Kildare and Limerick, and created ‘a magnificent seat’ at Ballyfin on which he spent more than £26,000 on improvements prior to 1826.3J. Bateman, The Great Landowners of Great Britain (4th edn., 1883), 104; The Assembled Commons; or, parliamentary biographer (1838), 62-3; J.J. Howard & F.A. Crisp (eds.), Visitation of Ireland (1973), 57; S. Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) ii. 396. The property was damaged by fire in 1846, the house and furniture being then insured for £100,000: Morning Post, 10 Aug. 1846.

Coote had, after two unsuccessful attempts in 1818 and 1820, been returned for Queen’s County in 1821 as a supporter of the Liverpool ministry.4HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 681; HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 859-61; iv. 736. An independent Tory with Whiggish leanings, his subsequent career was to be characterised by shifting political allegiances. By the late 1820s he espoused ‘moderate Whig principles’ and supported Catholic emancipation. He opposed, however, the second reading of the reform bill in March 1831, claiming for himself ‘the exercise of private judgment in the details of that bill’.5Freeman’s Journal, 9 Dec. 1831; HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 861; iv. 736-7. He eventually voted for reform in 1832, yet his parliamentary conduct on the issue was regarded by Irish liberals as ‘exceedingly shuffling and unsatisfactory’. He was narrowly returned in second place at the 1832 general election as a Conservative after a severe contest in which his carriage was attacked and fired upon.6Freeman’s Journal, 20, 27 Dec. 1832; E. O’Leary & M. Lalor, History of the Queen’s County (1914), ii. 686. In February 1833 he spoke on the issue of tithes, defending the magistrates of Queen’s County against charges of abuse of power levelled by his fellow county member, Patrick Lalor.7Hansard, 21 Feb. 1833, vol. 16, c. 1026. The following month, voicing support for the Irish coercion bill, he defended the gentry of Queen’s County, arguing that they were not to blame for the condition of those districts where ‘no gentleman’ ventured to ‘remain unarmed by day or night’.8Hansard, 5 Mar. 1833, vol. 16, cc. 222-5. He was soon afterwards appointed to the committee on the Irish grand jury bill, and supported Lord Althorp’s motion for the replacement of church rates, 21 Apr. 1834.9Standard, 11 Mar. 1833.

Coote was re-elected at the 1835 general election, after declining an approach to coalesce with Daniel O’Connell’s Anti-Tory Association, and largely owed ‘his success to the indefatigable exertions and zeal of the Conservative and landed interest of the county, as also to his numerous and extensive tenantry’.10Morning Post, 26 Dec. 1834; The Times, 6 Feb. 1835; R.B. Mosse, The Parliamentary Guide (1837), 78. He was listed by The Examiner amongst the ‘doubtful men’ of the House who, having ‘generally voted with the Whigs’, seemed ‘to desire place among the fair trial men’ who were prepared to back Sir Robert Peel’s ministry. He was not, however, deemed ‘reliable either way’.11Examiner, 8 Feb. 1835. In that session he backed the Conservatives on the address and the choice of speaker, voted for the protection of freemen voters, and Peel’s motion on the Irish church bill, but opposed the repeal of the malt tax, and Lord John Russell’s motion on Irish Church temporalities. That year he also served on the select committee on public works.12Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1836), 98; PP 1835 (329) xx. 145; PP 1835 (573) xx. 169. He voted against the Melbourne ministry on the address, 4 Feb. 1836, and opposed their motion on Irish tithes, 3 June,13According to ‘local tradition’, he was sympathetic to the view that repeal of union would have been in the best interests of Ireland. However, no evidence of this has yet come to light: P.F. Meehan, The Members of Parliament for Laois and Offaly (Queen’s and King’s Counties), 1801-1918 (1983), 30. also dividing against the abolition of church rates and the Irish municipal corporations bill. In July 1837, however, he confessed that in opposing the latter reform he had sacrificed his own opinions to what he had understood to be the sentiments of the great majority of his electors, and would henceforth ‘concur in a measure for the establishment of municipal corporations as the representative system in Ireland’.14Morning Chronicle, 18 July 1837. That year he also served on the select committee on turnpike roads.15PP 1837 (484) xx. 397.

Coote was re-elected at the 1837 general election, offering ‘his diligent attention … to those measures which most interested Ireland at the present moment’, and with the endorsement of O’Connell, who had pronounced him to be ‘an excellent man’.16Standard, 14 Aug., 13 July 1837. O’Connell would, however, have preferred to see Coote’s son returned instead as a Liberal: D. O’Connell to E. Ellice, 12 July 1837: O’Connell Correspondence, ed. M.R. O’Connell, vi. 62-3. He was regarded, however, as having ‘veered again from his profession of being a Municipal Reformer’, being unprepared ‘to go so far as the ministerial bill’.17Morning Chronicle, 15 Aug. 1837. Some observers considered him a ‘doubtful’ Tory who might prove sympathetic to some Whig politics, while others saw him as ‘a decided Conservative’ who could be relied upon to vote ‘uniformly in opposition to the “O’Connell government”’.18Examiner, 20 Aug. 1837; Morning Post, 28 Feb. 1838; Standard, 7 Sept. 1837. The roles of his brother, Chidley, as grand master of the Orangemen of Queen’s County, and deputy grand master of the Orange Order of Ireland, may have reinforced views of his Conservatism: PP 1835 (377) xv. 1 [204]; Morning Post, 17 Nov. 1838. Indeed, he supported Lord Sandon’s motion blaming Whig policy for the rebellion in Canada, 7 Mar. 1838, and opposed the early termination of slave apprenticeships, 30 Mar. 1838. He was among the ‘Irish country gentlemen’ who unsuccessfully opposed the third reading of the Irish poor law bill, 30 Apr., and voted against the ministry on the question of Irish tithe appropriation, 15 May 1838.19P. Gray, The making of the Irish poor law, 1815-43 (2009), 205, 207. On Irish municipal reform, however, he disappeared from his ‘usual post near Sir Robert Peel’, and left the House without voting on his leaders unsuccessful amendment to the bill, 11 June.20Caledonian Mercury, 18 June 1838; Morning Chronicle, 20 June 1838; Liverpool Mercury, 22 June 1838.

After serving on the Bristol election committee in February 1838, Coote visited the continent between September 1838 and February 1839.21Bristol Mercury, 17 Feb. 1838; Morning Post, 6 Sept. 1838; Standard, 14 Feb. 1839. On his return he voted against the ministry over the general conduct of the Irish administration, 19 Apr. 1839, and the suspension of the Jamaican constitution, 6 May, and opposed the election of Charles Shaw Lefevre as speaker, 27 May, and the equalisation of the English borough and county franchises, 4 June. In February 1840 he briefly relinquished his parliamentary duties upon the death of his youngest son, being granted a leave of absence to 8 March, and was himself in ‘a dangerous state of health’ that May when, having presented petitions in favour of Lord Stanley’s registration bill, he was forced to seek a pair for the division on the bill’s adjournment.22Standard, 4, 20 Feb. 1840; Morning Post, 9 May 1840; Freeman’s Journal, 25 May 1840. He duly voted against Lord Morpeth’s rival measure, 25 Feb. 1841. He was one of only two Irish Conservatives to vote for the third reading of the Irish municipal corporations bill, 9 Mar. 1840, but supported the motion of censure against the government policy towards China, 9 Apr., and sided with Peel over the reduction of foreign sugar duty, 18 May 1841, and on the confidence motion which brought down the Whig ministry, 8 June 1841.

With the Conservatives restored to power, Coote loyally supported Peel’s ministry over the reintroduction of income tax, 13 Apr., 31 May 1842, and opposed Russell’s motion for a committee to consider the state of Ireland, 23 Feb. 1844. He incurred the displeasure of his supporters for voting with the ministry on the Maynooth grant, 21 May 1845,23Standard, 17 Sept. 1840; Examiner, 3 May 1845. and in April 1846 was appointed to the Bridport election committee. Having declared himself a determined supporter of the corn laws at his return in 1841, he subsequently opposed their repeal.24Standard, 25 Apr. 1846; Morning Chronicle, 13 July 1841; Morning Post, 26 Jan. 1846. However, after advertising his intention in January 1846 to stand down at the next election, he was believed to have tendered his vote on repeal to the ministry. Although he subsequently denied this, and voted in the minority against the first and second readings of the corn importation bill, he appeared ‘to have deserted from the Protectionist camp’, after he failed to divide on the third reading, 15 May 1846.25The Era, 18 Jan. 1846; Freeman’s Journal, 7 Feb. 1846; The Times, 19 May 1846. It was ‘remarked, as a curious coincidence’, that Coote’s son had ‘just been presented to a crown living of 600l. a year’: Morning Post, 4 Feb. 1846. He did, however, support Peel on the Irish coercion bill, 25 June 1846, before retiring at the dissolution in 1847.26Standard, 28 June 1847.

Coote was considered to be ‘a good resident landlord’, and had extended a large measure of tithe relief to his tenants in 1839, providing charity for the poor and unemployed the following winter. That year he had also attempted to exploit recently discovered coal deposits on his estate.27Freeman’s Journal, 23 May 1855; Belfast News-letter, 29 Mar. 1839; Standard, 29 Dec. 1840; Freeman’s Journal, 30 May 1840. In 1853 it was claimed that his estate had been ‘so judiciously managed’ during the famine that ‘not a single acre’ was untenanted, and clearances had ‘altogether been avoided’.28Morning Chronicle, 8 Mar. 1853. Some years later, however, he declared his intention to ‘purge his estate of all those found to be engaged in conspiracy’, following the assassination of one of his most prominent tenants.29Morning Post, 29 Nov. 1858. In spite of repeated rumours over the years that he was about to be elevated to the peerage, Coote is said to have refused a new creation of the earldom of Mountrath.30HP Commons, 1820-32, iv. 736-7; Mosse, The Parliamentary Guide, 151; Freeman’s Journal, 25 Sept. 1841; Belfast News-letter, 6 Jan. 1843; Standard, 6 Oct. 1847; Morning Post, 8 Nov. 1858; Meehan, Members of Parliament for Laois and Offaly, 30.

Having preserved ‘a discreet silence’ on the question of protection, and resisted calls to support a repeal of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, Coote was returned unopposed for Queen’s County at the 1852 general election.31E. O’Leary & M. Lalor, History of the Queen’s County (1914), ii. 711; The Times, 12 Apr. 1852. His protectionist sympathies led him to support Lord Derby’s ministry in 1852, opposing Villiers’s free trade motion, 26 Nov. 1852, and voting for Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1852. He divided against Gladstone’s budget resolutions, 2 May 1853, but also opposed Spooner’s anti-Maynooth motion, 23 Feb. 1853, and backed Lord Aberdeen’s coalition ministry over succession duty, 13 June, the India bill, 30 June 1853, and exchequer bonds, 22 May 1854, whilst opposing the church rates abolition bill, 21 June 1854.32Morning Chronicle, 20 July 1852; The Times, 21 July 1852; Freeman’s Journal, 8 May 1855; Meehan, Members of Parliament for Laois and Offaly, 30; J.B. Conacher, The Aberdeen Coalition, 1852-1855 (1968), 555, 558. He opposed both Disraeli’s critical motion on the prosecution of the Crimean War, 25 May 1855, and Roebuck’s motion of censure against the cabinet, 19 July 1855. He no longer appears to have taken part in debate, serving on just one committee in this period, concerning the Westminster bridge bill in 1853.33PP 1852-53 (622) xxxix. 467. Being over 60 years of age, he was excused service on election committees: Morning Post, 3 Dec. 1852.

By this time Coote was a moderate attender, voting in 42 of the 257 divisions in 1853, and 44 of the 198 taken in 1856.34Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J.P. Gassiot & J.A. Roebuck, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions in the House of Commons during the last session of parliament (1857), 30. He was now regarded as ‘a very moderate Conservative’ and as one of the ‘less bigoted’, having signed the memorial on behalf of William Smith O’Brien in May 1855.35Freeman’s Journal, 23 May 1855. In January 1857 he was grouped amongst the ‘exceptional Tories’ who now leant ‘to Lord Palmerston in preference to Lord Derby’.36Morning Chronicle, 10 Jan. 1857. Having again opposed Spooner’s motion to abolish the Maynooth grant, 19 Feb. 1857, he was the only Irish Conservative to support the ministry on the budget, 23 Feb., and supported Palmerston over the Canton incident, 3 Mar. 1857.37Freeman’s Journal, 23, 26 Feb. 1857. He was returned at the top of the poll after a stormy contest at the 1857 general election, prior to which his votes on questions of civil and religious liberty, such as church rates, university tests, and minister’s money, were criticised in the liberal press, he having ‘recorded seven votes against full liberty of conscience’, and only ‘one vote in support of the continuance of the Maynooth grant’.38Freeman’s Journal, 19 Mar. 1857. Listed among the ‘Independent Conservatives’ who had promised to give their ‘honest support’ to Lord Palmerston, he supported the ministry on the property qualification bill, 10 June 1857, and kept faith with them over the conspiracy to murder to bill, 19 Feb. 1858.39Daily News, 10 Apr. 1857; Morning Post, 13 Apr. 1857. Having then ‘given a steady support’ to the Derby ministry in 1858-9, opposing the abolition of church rates, 8 June 1858, he declared his intention to stand down in November 1858. After voting for Derby’s reform bill, 31 Mar. 1859, he retired at the 1859 general election, transferring his support to his erstwhile backer, Francis Plunket Dunne.40Belfast News-letter, 11 June 1858, 8 Apr. 1859; Morning Post, 8 Nov. 1858; The Times, 8 Apr. 1859.

Coote died at 5 Connaught Place, London and was buried at Ballyfin church on 20 October 1864.41F. Boase, Modern English Biography, i. 713. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, Charles Henry (1815-95), who had stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal for Queen’s County in 1837, and is thought to have declined, on grounds of ill health, to stand as a home ruler in 1874.42Meehan, Members of Parliament for Laois and Offaly, 32, 44.