PIERREPONT, Charles Evelyn, viscount Newark I (1805-1850), of Thoresby Park, Nottinghamshire and 13 Portman Square, London

Perpetually dogged by poor health, Pierrepont, styled viscount Newark, had a perfunctory parliamentary career. He was the eldest son of the 2^nd Earl Manvers, one of Nottinghamshire’s wealthiest landowners. Manvers, an anti-Catholic Tory and former naval officer renowned for his ‘amiable, open sailor like habits’, represented Nottinghamshire from 1801 until his succession in 1816, which brought to an end the family’s 38-year occupation of one of the county’s seats.1Hatherton diary, 3 Nov. 1821; HP Commons, 1820-32, vi. 775-6. A sickly child, Newark was educated privately at Thoresby Hall, described as ‘a large cold house, with quantities of rooms badly aired and furnished’, before going to Eton.2Hatherton diary, 3 Nov. 1821. Later at Oxford he became known as ‘an elegant classical scholar’, and in 1826 graduated with a first class degree in classics.3Gent. Mag. (1850), ii. 432-3. In 1827 the ultra Tory fourth duke of Newcastle, with whom Manvers was politically connected, described Newark as ‘a good and amiable young man’, who ‘I trust will not be spoiled by the world when he goes into it’.4Unhappy reactionary: the diaries of the fourth duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, 1822-1850 (2003), ed. R.A. Gaunt, 14.

Newark was first returned for East Retford in 1830, ostensibly as an independent. The radical Nottingham Review, which counted him as a supporter of Wellington, thought little of his abilities, and condemned his over-confident acceptance speech, commenting that he:

either must or ought to be aware that nursery tales are not always accounted as wit, nor is swearing to be taken for a sign of good sense.5Nottingham Review, 30 Aug. 1830.

His first speech in the Commons, however, revealed him to be an advocate of the Grey ministry’s reform bill. Re-elected in 1831, he remained loyal to the government on most major issues, though he opposed the creation of single member constituencies.6HP Commons, 1820-32, vi. 775-7.

At the 1832 general election Newark stood as a Reformer and was returned in second place, alongside his uncle, Granville Venables Harcourt Vernon, comfortably defeating the Tory John Beckett, the former judge advocate general.7Morning Chronicle, 18 Dec. 1832. His frail health, however, severely curtailed his appearances in the Commons. When present, he remained loyal to Grey’s ministry on most major issues.8R. Gooch, The book of the reformed Parliament: being a synopsis of the votes of the reformed House of Commons (1834), 20-21, 42-3. He was in the minority which backed Chandos’s motion that agriculture be considered in any reduction of taxation, 21 Feb. 1834.

In his only known Commons speech of the post-Reform era, he stated his opposition to a lower fixed duty on corn, arguing that its effect:

would be to throw all the poor lands of the kingdom out of cultivation; nor was it certain that any foreign supply would be either regular or abundant, or that any advantage to be derived to the manufacturer would compensate for the mischief of throwing so large a portion of the agricultural poor out of employ.9Hansard, 17 May 1833, vol. 17, cc. 1362-4.

Following the dissolution in 1834, Newark announced his intention to retire from Parliament, citing ill-health.10Standard, 31 Dec. 1834. He spent the next six years in Italy and the south of France, before returning to England, whereafter he spent most of his time in Devon and indulged his passion for writing poetry, which appears to have been published rarely, if at all.11Gent. Mag. (1850), ii. 432-3.

Newark died whilst residing at Torquay in August 1850.12Nottinghamshire Guardian, 29 Aug. 1850. One of his obituaries rather charitably (and incorrectly) remembered him as attending to ‘his parliamentary duties with great diligence and assiduity’.13Gent. Mag. (1850), ii. 432-3. He was succeeded by his younger brother, Sydney, who represented Nottinghamshire South in the Conservative interest until his succession as 3^rd Earl Manvers in 1860.14Sydney is confused with Charles in Michael Stenton’s Who’s who of British Members of Parliament, 1832-1885 (1976), 284, which incorrectly states that Charles sat for Nottinghamshire South. A handful of papers relating to Newark’s political career are part of the Manvers Collection, held by the University of Nottingham.15Nottingham Univ. Lib., Special Collections, MA.