WROTTESLEY, Sir John (1771-1841), of Wrottesley Hall, near Tettenhall, Staffordshire; 13 St. George’s Street, Middlesex

One of the few MPs in the reformed Parliament to have sat before 1800, Wrottesley was a ‘decided Whig’ and a former soldier, landed gentleman and country banker who spoke with authority on military, agricultural and financial issues.1Dyott’s diary: a selection from the journal of General William Dyott, 1781-1845, ed. R.W. Jeffrey (1907), ii. 146 (1 Nov. 1832); J.C. Wedgwood, Staffordshire parliamentary history (1934), iii. 15. A parliamentary journalist described Wrottesley as a ‘little round-about, stumpy country squire’, but the Staffordshire Tory William Dyott thought him ‘a man of good understanding, rather austere in manner, a man of business, and a proper person to represent this county’.2‘Extracts from the diary of an MP’, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, iii (1833), 641-9 (at 646); Dyott’s diary, ii. 148 (21 Nov. 1832). Lord Brougham’s secretary Denis Le Marchant wrote that Wrottesley was ‘a man of authority & standing in the House’.3A. Aspinall, Three early nineteenth century diaries (1952), 347 (July 1833). A good committee man, Wrottesley’s longstanding colleague Edward John Littleton, later Lord Hatherton, wrote that ‘although he spoke frequently in the House and was always listened to with attention and respect, he never became a really fluent or easy speaker’.4G. Wrottesley, History of the family of Wrottesley of Wrottesley, county Stafford (1903), 369. In the reformed Commons, Wrottesley’s chief role was in acting as a spokesman for the mostly silent cohort of Whig and independent country gentleman on financial and agricultural issues. Returned by farmers demanding relief, these MPs had a low opinion of Peel’s 1819 Bank Act and were sympathetic to the reduction or repeal of malt duty. However, they generally accepted Lord Althorp’s insistence that changes to the currency or malt duty would endanger the public credit and finances, a regular theme of Wrottesley’s hustings speeches, and supported the gradual reduction of taxation and reform of the poor law to effect agricultural relief.5Staffordshire Advertiser, 17 Jan. 1835, 5 Aug. 1837. Wrottesley held Althorp in high esteem, declaring in 1835 that ‘in point of integrity, honesty, firmness, and liberality, that noble lord has never been excelled by any man’.6Staffordshire Advertiser, 17 Jan. 1835. Although a party loyalist, Wrottesley’s motion for a call of the House in July 1833, designed to demonstrate political support for the government in their struggle with the Lords over Irish church reform led to an unexpected defeat, which Charles Greville attributed to Wrottesley’s ‘bravado’.7Greville memoirs, ed. H. Reeve (1875), iii. 8 (14 July 1833).

Wrottesley’s family possessed an ancient lineage and an impressive parliamentary pedigree. His father Sir John, 8th baronet (1744-87), had been MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, 1768, and Staffordshire, 1768-87.8HP Commons, 1754-1790, iii. 655-6. Wrottesley’s grandfather, Sir Richard Wrottesley, 7th bt., (1721-69), represented Tavistock, 1747-54 and his great grandfather Sir John Wrottesley, 4th baronet (1682-1726), represented Staffordshire, 1708-10: HP Commons, 1715-1754, ii. 559-60; ibid., 1690-1715, v. 930. After abandoning a military career, Wrottesley became a young Pittite MP for Lichfield, 1799-1806, but by the time he was returned for Staffordshire in 1823 he was a Whig, who voted for Catholic relief and parliamentary reform.9HP Commons, 1790-1820, v. 655-7; ibid., 1820-1832, vii. 914-19 (at 914). A zealous agricultural improver, in 1816 Wrottesley had co-founded a country bank in Wolverhampton, known as Wrottesley & Holyoake.10Dyott’s diary, ii. 146 (30 Oct. 1832); M. Dawes, Country banks of England and Wales, 1688-1953 (2000), ii. 651-2. His annual income was £10,000.11Hatherton journal, 7 July 1837, Hatherton papers, Staffordshire Record Office, D1178/1.

Wrottesley was returned unopposed alongside Littleton for the new constituency of South Staffordshire at the 1832 general election, when he notably called for free and open competition in banking and a fixed duty on corn.12Staffordshire Advertiser, 22 Dec. 1832. In the 1833 session he was a regular participant in financial and agricultural debates. Although he agreed that much of the current distress was attributable to the 1819 Bank Act and the subsequent phasing out of small notes, he opposed Thomas Attwood’s motion for a committee on distress, 21 Mar. 1833.13Hansard, 21 Mar. 1833, vol. 16, c. 905. Retrenchment and reduction of taxation would provide better relief than currency reform, Wrottesley argued.14Ibid. However, he supported the motion of Attwood’s brother Matthias for an inquiry into the monetary system, 24 Apr. 1833, drawing attention to the fluctuations in the circulation caused by gold outflows.15Hansard, 24 Apr. 1833, vol. 17, cc. 573-6.

Wrottesley opposed Lord Chandos’s motion to prioritise agricultural relief, preferring Ingilby’s proposal to reduce malt duty to 10s. per quarter, which he argued would relieve all interests, 26 Apr. 1833.16Hansard, 26 Apr. 1833, vol. 17, c. 686; Parliamentary Review, ii (1833), 151. However, when Althorp threatened to introduce a property tax unless Ingilby’s motion was rescinded, Wrottesley defended his leader’s conduct, 29, 30 Apr. 1833.17Hansard, 29, 30 Apr. 1833, vol. 17, cc. 733-4, 785-8. His speech was dismissed by George Richard Robinson, the main parliamentary advocate of a property tax, as ‘extremely inconsistent’.18Ibid., c. 788. During the debates on Bank charter renewal, Wrottesley voiced the concerns of country banks, lamented the thin attendance of MPs and unexpectedly proposed decimal coinage, 10 Aug. 1833.19Hansard, 10 Aug. 1833, vol. 20, cc. 494-5.

Wrottesley’s most famous contribution to the first session of the reformed Commons was his motion for a call of the House, 15 July 1833. This aimed to ensure MPs’ attendance in the event of a showdown between the government and the House of Lords over Irish church appropriation. The future American secretary of state, William H. Seward described Wrottesley’s speech as ‘modest and well-conceived’, but others were less complimentary.20Hansard, 15 July 1833, vol. 19, cc. 650-2; F.W. Seward, William H. Seward: an autobiography, 1801-34 (1891), i. 111. Greville thought it was ‘an extreme piece of folly, for it was obviously for the purpose of bullying the House of Lords, who would not be bullied, and this species of menace only increased the obstinacy of the majority there’.21Greville memoirs, iii. 9 (14 July 1833). Wrottesley ‘resisted Lord Althorp’s earnest entreaties to withdraw’ his motion, which was defeated 125-160.22Hansard, 15 July 1833, vol. 19, cc. 657, 662; The Holland House diaries, 1831-40, ed. A.D. Kriegel, (1977), 230 (15 July 1833). Although Lord Holland thought that no ‘material mischief’ had resulted from the episode, he conceded that the ministry’s unpreparedness and opposition to the motion had offended its supporters.23Ibid.

Wrottesley made fewer contributions in debate after 1833, but continued to be an active MP. Despite his hustings declarations, he opposed the low fixed duty on corn proposed by Joseph Hume, 7 Mar. 1834, but thoroughly approved of the new poor law passed in the same session.24Staffordshire Advertiser, 17 Jan. 1835. He criticised clerical non-residence and supported Althorp’s scheme to replace church rates with a grant funded from the land tax, 20 Feb., 21 Apr. 1834.25Hansard, 20 Feb. 1834, vol. 21, cc. 561-4. Much of Wrottesley’s time was increasingly spent in committee. In 1833 he had served on a number of committees that recommended retrenchments in the fees, emoluments and sinecures relating to the civil list, army and navy and parliamentary clerks, as well as another inquiry who recommended the establishment of a commission on municipal corporations that was subsequently adopted by the government.26PP 1833 (646), vii. 780-4 (civil list); 1833 (648), xii. 180-92 (House of Commons); 1833 (650), vii. 2-12 (army and navy); 1833 (344), xiii. 2, 7 (municipal corporations). The most important inquiry he sat on in 1834 was on county rates, which recommended that financial committees be established in every county to produce regular accounts and provide more effective control of expenditure by magistrates.27PP 1834 (542), xiv. 2-3, 12.

Wrottesley was returned unopposed at the 1835 general election, when he made a ‘short good speech, plain and professing his Whig politicks in a manly manner’.28Dyott’s diary, ii. 189 (10 Jan. 1835). He divided with the Whigs in all the key party divisions of the subsequent session, and opposed Chandos’s motion for malt tax repeal, 10 Mar. 1835. The government conceded his demand for an investigation into the election riots at Wolverhampton after the South Staffordshire by-election, 1 June 1835. However, Wrottesley unintentionally provoked laughter by saying that he ‘had been a Magistrate of the county of Stafford for forty years, and had been concerned in the greater part of the riots which had taken place in that district’.29Hansard, 1 June 1835, vol. 28, cc. 233-5 (at 234); Wedgwood, Staffordshire parliamentary history, iii. 14. He had the honour of moving the address to the king’s speech, 4 Feb. 1836, but his grandson later wrote that his oration contained ‘nothing of interest’.30Wrottesley, History of the family of Wrottesley, 373. Arguing that the new poor law, reductions in county rates and more efficient management of turnpikes had done much to relieve farmers, Wrottesley suggested that the agricultural interest would have to make their case for further concessions.31Hansard, 4 Feb. 1839, vol. 31, cc. 23-9 (at 24). He also voiced support for reform of the Irish church and municipal corporations and the establishment of an Irish poor law.32Ibid., c. 27.

Wrottesley backed the Whigs’ proposed tithes commutation bill for England, 10 May 1836. The following year he cautiously endorsed Hume’s county rates bill as, although he did not approve of annual elections, he thought there was ‘a great deal of mismanagement under the present system’.33Hansard, 12 Apr. 1837, vol. 37, c. 1129. In his last years in the House, Wrottesley served on a number of committees on parliamentary procedure and expiring legislation, as well as the unfinished inquiry into joint-stock banks (1836-7).34PP 1835 (105), xviii. 556-7; 1836 (27), xxi. 2-4; 1837 (130), xx. 2-4 (expiring laws); 1837 (367), xiii. 303-6; 1837 (489), xiii. 324-5 (private bills); 1836 (591), ix. 412-20; 1837 (531), xiv. 2 (joint-stock banks). Most importantly he was a member of the 1835 committee which led to the ad hoc charity commission being converted into a permanent body to oversee and regulate charities.35PP 1835 (449), vii. 632-45.

Privately, the Conservatives had promised to offer no opposition if Wrottesley was returned alongside one of their party at the 1837 general election.36Hatherton journal, 8, 9 July 1837, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D1178/1. Wrottesley, Hatherton wrote, took this as ‘a most disinterested compliment to himself, whereas nothing now exceeded his personal unpopularity’.37Hatherton journal, 9 July 1837, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D1178/1. As Hatherton recognised, the proposed offer was intended to allow the Conservatives to hold their seat without a contest and keep their powder dry for a vacancy if Wrottesley was elevated to the peerage, which was widely expected. When confronted by Whig peers about the offer, ‘Wrottesley seemed quite incapable of giving a proper answer to this communication, … he began to explain his ideas in twenty sentences, without being able to finish one’.38Hatherton journal, 8 July 1837, Staffs. RO, D1178/1. Amid rumours that he was to be ennobled, Wrottesley retired, citing his inability to perform ‘arduous duties’.39Staffordshire Advertiser, 1, 15 July 1837. He was later forced to stand at short notice after being browbeaten by the Whig earl of Lichfield, who considered his candidature essential to secure the return of his brother, George Anson, against two Conservatives.40Hatherton journal, 27-28 July 1837, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D1178/1. The earl had threatened to lobby Lord Melbourne against giving Wrottesley the peerage he craved unless he stood. Melbourne’s comment that ‘I don’t like your country gentlemen who turns banker’, led Hatherton to write that ‘I suspect some one had been putting a spoke in Wrottesley’s wheel’.41Hatherton journal, 7 July 1837, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D1178/1. Conservatives jeered that Wrottesley ‘had bartered his support of Colonel Anson for the promise of the peerage’.42Morning Chronicle, qu. in The Standard, 18 Aug. 1837. Wrottesley finished last, but only missed out on second place by 200 votes, while Anson topped the poll. As his old colleague Hatherton remarked, ‘it is quite clear that had Wrottesley stirred from home, [he] might have come in on a canter. But he wished to be beaten’.43Hatherton journal, 2 Aug. 1837, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D1178/1.

Wrottesley was duly ennobled as 1st Baron Wrottesley in 1838, and made a handful of speeches in the Lords in 1839, before his health deteriorated.44Wrottesley, History of the family of Wrottesley, 373. He had retired from his bank in 1834, as his partner Sir Francis Lyttleton Holyoake Goodricke, MP for Stafford, 1835, and South Staffordshire, 1835-7, was using advances from the bank to fund the Conservatives.45Ibid., 371-2. On his death in 1841, Wrottesley was succeeded by his eldest son John Wrottesley, 2nd Baron Wrottesley (1798-1867), a noted astronomer.46E.I. Carlyle, rev. A. McConnell, ‘Wrottesley, John, second Baron Wrottesley (1798-1867)’, www.oxforddnb.com. Although he authored Thoughts on government and legislation (1860), the 2nd Baron’s neglect of local politics meant that his heir Arthur Wrottesley (1824-1910) was passed over for the representation of South Staffordshire in 1854 and 1857, even though he was the most talented of the county’s young Whigs.47Hatherton journal, 27 Nov. 1853, 2, 6, 15 Dec. 1853; 20, 27, 28 Mar. 1857, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D260/M/7/5/26/63 and 71. After succeeding as 3rd Baron in 1867, Arthur Wrottesley served as a Liberal whip in the Lords, 1869-74, 1880-5, and was lord lieutenant of Staffordshire 1871-87.48Wrottesley, History of the family of Wrottesley, 386.