A’COURT (afterwards A’COURT REPINGTON), Edward Henry (1783-1855), of Heytesbury, Wiltshire; Amington Hall, near Tamworth, Warwickshire; 16 Ryder Street, Middlesex

A naval officer, who had fought in the Napoleonic Wars, A’Court had represented the borough of Heytesbury on the interest of his brother, Lord Heytesbury, in the unreformed Parliament. Before his constituency was disenfranchised by the 1832 Reform Act, which A’Court opposed, he had generally given silent support to successive Tory governments and voted against Catholic relief in 1829.1HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 26-7.

In 1837 A’Court inherited Amington Hall, in Warwickshire, from his father’s first cousin, Charles Edward Repington (1755-1837).2Ibid., 27; Gent. Mag. (1855), ii. 539-40; C. Palmer, History of the town and castle of Tamworth (1845), 231-9. The inheritance made A’Court one of the major local landowners in the Tamworth area, although his estate was smaller than that possessed by the Conservative Peel family of Drayton Manor, or the Whig Townshends, of Tamworth Castle. At the 1837 general election, A’Court accepted a requisition to stand as a Conservative candidate for Tamworth, alongside Sir Robert Peel.3Morning Chronicle, 27 June 1837; The Times, 27 June 1837. At the nomination A’Court, who ‘avowed himself a Conservative – a determined upholder of our glorious constitution of Queen, Lords, and Commons’, was repeatedly accused by the Whig candidate John Townshend of being Sir Robert Peel’s nominee.4The Times, 25, 27 July 1837. Although Peel expressed satisfaction that two Conservatives had been returned, he denied using undue influence to secure A’Court’s election and later challenged Townshend to a duel after the Whig made further allegations.5The Times, 27 July 1837; Staffordshire Advertiser, 29 July 1837; N. Gash, Politics in the age of Peel (1953), 194-5; N. Gash, Sir Robert Peel (1972), 189-90.

A’Court was silent in the 1838 session, but followed a Conservative line, opposing the Whigs’ attempts to reform the Irish church and tithe, supporting the new poor law and backing Sandon’s motion condemning the Whig government’s Canadian policy, 7 Mar. 1838. A’Court also divided against radical political reforms such as the ballot, and Villiers’s anti-corn law motions. In 1839 A’Court noted smugly to Peel that the Whig chancellor of the exchequer Thomas Spring Rice and the Irish leader Daniel O’Connell were ‘at loggerheads respecting the renewal of the Irish bank charter’.6Edward Henry A’Court to Sir Robert Peel, n.d. [1839], Add. 40427, f. 133. In the same year A’Court attacked the Whigs management of the navy, drawing attention to the ‘utterly defenceless state of the ports and harbours’ and ships that were ‘miserably under-manned’.7Hansard, 11 Mar. 1839, vol. 46, c. 266. The ‘present inefficient state’ of the royal navy, he warned, was likely to be exposed sooner rather than later, he warned, especially as the admiralty were complacent about the capacity of the French and Russian fleets.8Ibid., cc. 266-7. The following year A’Court complained that the appointment of Admiral Fleming as governor of Greenwich Hospital had reduced the governorship to a mere party political sinecure.9Hansard, 21 Feb. 1840, vol. 52, cc. 474-6. He again expressed alarm about the deficiency of royal navy ships, in both firepower and manpower, compared to the French, 21 Feb. 1840.10Ibid., cc. 475-6.

A’Court backed Peel’s motion of no confidence in the Whig government, 4 June 1841, and was re-elected at the ensuing general election, when he expressed opposition to any alteration of the corn laws and sugar duties. The Whigs had only brought forward these measures to ‘delude the public’ and he further complained that Lord Palmerston’s foreign policy had ‘involved us in disputes with almost every other country in the universe’.11Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 July 1841. A’Court declined an offer of the governorship of Greenwich hospital, which would mean giving up his half-pay, writing to Peel, 6 Oct. 1841:

I have less regret in coming to this determination as I feel that the situation would have placed me rather too much out of my line, the very name of Greenwich carrying to my mind a sort of retirement.12A’Court to Peel, 6 Oct. 1841, Add. 40491, ff. 82-3.

A’Court supported Peel’s revision of the corn laws and re-introduction of income tax in 1842 and continued to oppose radical political reforms. An additional reason for his loyalty towards Peel’s government was the appointment of his brother Lord Heytesbury as lord lieutenant of Ireland in 1844. Like his leader and parliamentary colleague, A’Court opposed attempts to revise or repeal the new poor law or reduce the powers of the poor law commission, 17, 21, 27 June 1842. He was similarly resistant to the 10 hour day in textile factories, 22 Mar. 1844. All of this suggests that like Peel, A’Court had laissez-faire views on the economic role of the state, at odds with paternalist Conservatives. Although A’Court continued to cast votes against Villiers’s anti-corn law motions, his record on factory regulation and the new poor law, as well as his support for the 1845 Maynooth college bill, indicated that he would back Peel’s 1846 measure to repeal the corn laws, as indeed proved to be the case. A’Court endorsed the corn importation bill, opposed the factories bill, 22 May 1846, and was one of the Peelites who supported the Irish coercion bill, the defeat of which ejected Peel from the premiership, 25 June 1846.

Although A’Court initially stood his ground at the 1847 general election, he was forced to retire when local protectionists and agriculturalists brought forward Peel’s brother William Yates Peel.13Gash, Politics in the age of Peel, 195-6; idem, Sir Robert Peel, 626. As Edmund Peel predicted, A’Court ‘decide[d] not to spend any money’.14Edmund Peel to Sir Robert Peel, 3 June 1847, Add. 40598, f. 310. A’Court thanked his supporters, but added:

I nevertheless feel compelled not to enter into a contest of which the result (from early exertions of the opposing party) might be very uncertain, and which would necessarily be attended with a considerable expense – an expense, which you are well aware, it would be most inconvenient for me to incur.15Copy of letter from A’Court to Charles A’Court, 4 June 1847, Add. 40598, ff. 315-16.

Irritated by the suggestion that he had secretly promised to retire in William Yates Peel’s favour, A’Court published an address, pointedly noting that he was ‘not responsible’ for the events that had ‘already so unfortunately disturbed the social relations in this borough’.16E.H. A’Court, ‘To the electors of the borough of Tamworth’, 12 June 1847, Add. 40598, f. 346. A’Court declined to stand when William Yates Peel suddenly resigned in December 1847, even though Edmund Peel wrote to Sir Robert that ‘there is a feeling in town that A’Court would be the man you would wish to see returned, & that he would vote much as you did’.17Edmund Peel to Sir Robert Peel, 1 Dec. 1847, Add. 40599, f. 435.

A’Court added the surname Repington to his own patronymic in 1847, belatedly complying with the terms of the 1837 Amington bequest.18Gent. Mag. (1855), ii. 539-40. He was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral in 1847 and vice-admiral in 1854.19Morning Post, 25 May 1855. On A’Court’s death in 1855, the Amington estates passed successively to his brother Charles Ashe A’Court (1785-1861), who had briefly sat for Heytesbury in 1820, and then his nephew Charles Henry Wyndham A’Court (1819-1903), Conservative MP for Wilton 1852-5.20Burke’s peerage and baronetage (1949), 1005-6; HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 25-6; M. Stenton, Who’s who of British Members of Parliament (1976), i. 2.