MANNERS, Lord Robert William (1781-1835), of Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire

Manners, a long-serving representative for Leicestershire, and a veteran of Waterloo, was much abused during the 1830 election as a ‘leech on the public purse’, whose family were ‘the fawning, flattering parasites of every Administration, whether Whig or Tory’.1New Monthly Magazine (1835), xl. 540; Leicester Chronicle, 24 July 1830. His unpopularity forced his retirement at the general election the following year, after he had opposed the reform bill, but Manners was well-aware of his shortcomings, complaining to his brother, John Henry Manners, 5th duke of Rutland, in 1829 that ‘I always told you I was not fit to represent the county’.2Rutland MSS (History of Parliament Aspinall transcripts), Manners to Rutland, Mar. 1829, qu. in ‘Manners, Lord Robert William’, HP Commons, 1820-32, vi. 329-30 (at 329); ‘Leicestershire’, ibid., ii. 613. He was, however, elected in first place for the new constituency of North Leicestershire, which included the family seat of Belvoir Castle, in 1832, after profiting from the divisions of his opponents.3Morn. Chro., 25 Dec. 1832.

An infrequent attender who is not known to have ever spoken in the House, Manners cast votes against the Whigs’ 1833 Irish church temporalities bill, 6 May 1833, and shorter parliaments, 23 July 1833. The following year Manners supported Chandos’ motion on agricultural distress, 21 Feb. 1834, resisted the admission of dissenters to universities, 17 Apr. 1834, but supported Althorp’s proposal to replace church rates with a central grant raised from the land tax, 21 Apr. 1834.4‘Manners, Lord Robert William’, HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 533-4.

He was returned unopposed in a compromise at the 1835 election, when he stated that ‘length of attendance in parliament has not diminished my attachment to church and state’.5Leicester Journal, 2 Jan. 1835, qu. in The Parliamentary test-book for 1835 (1835), 104. Although he rarely spoke at Conservative meetings, he assured local supporters that he would be ‘encouraged in his attention to his Parliamentary duties by the unshaken energy which they had displayed’.6Derby Mercury, 25 Feb. 1835. He voted with his party in support of Manners Sutton for the speakership and on the address, 19, 26 Feb. 1835, and against Russell’s motion on the Irish church, 2 Apr. 1835. Later that year Manners was discovered ‘labouring under evident and alarming indisposition’ after a day’s hunt at Belvoir. He passed away before his brothers returned from London.7Gent. Mag. (1835), ii. 88-90 (at 89). A bachelor who died intestate, his small personal estate passed to Rutland.8‘Manners, Lord Robert William’, HP Commons, 1820-32, vi. 330. His other brother, Lord Charles Henry Somerset Manners (1780-1855), who had previously represented Cambridgeshire, displayed marginally more attentiveness and eloquence as MP for North Leicestershire, 1835-52.9‘Manners, Lord Charles Henry Somerset’, HP Commons, 1820-32, vi. 326-8.