WEYLAND, Richard (1780-1864), of Woodeaton Hall, nr. Islip, Oxon.

One of a declining cohort of Waterloo veterans to seek a place in the Commons, Weyland’s unsuccessful attempts to enter the unreformed House included contesting Weymouth in 1828 as ‘a steady and inflexible supporter’ of church and state, who would ‘decidedly oppose any innovation which may be brought forward for innovation’s sake’.1The Times, 12, 22 Feb. 1828. The hijacking of the seat by the premier Wellington’s son Lord Douro, who refused to acknowledge the Weyland family’s prior claims in the constituency, may account for his readiness to suppress his Tory instincts in 1831, when he came in for Oxfordshire as a ‘convert’ to the Whig ministry’s reform bill ‘in all its details’, much ‘to the dismay of the leading county people’.2HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 727-8; Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 22 Oct. 1864. Following the passage of reform in 1832, however, he gradually drifted back to the Conservatives, via the short-lived ‘Derby Dilly’ of 1835.3D. Eastwood, ‘Toryism, Reform and Political Culture in Oxfordshire, 1826-37’, Parliamentary History (1988), vii. 98-121, at 105-110.

At the 1832 general election Weyland offered again for Oxfordshire, citing his support for economy and retrenchment, his willingness to ‘oppose all unmerited pensions and useless sinecures’ and aversion to repeal of the corn laws, which would bring ‘irretrievable ruin to the landowner’. Refusing to make any other pledges, beyond an intention to ‘avoid extreme opinions’, he declared, ‘I will be a representative in the true constitutional sense of the term, but not a delegate’. The Reform Act’s allocation of an additional seat to the county facilitated an amicable compromise with the Tories and he was returned unopposed.4Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 8 Jan. 1833.

A silent and initially lax attender, Weyland was in the majorities against radical motions for economy and pension reductions, 14 Feb. 1833, 20 Feb. 1834, inquiry into economic distress, 23 Mar. 1833, and the abolition of military flogging, 4 Apr. 1833, and backed the Whigs’ Irish coercion bill, 7 Mar. 1833. He was also in the agricultural minorities for repeal of the malt tax, 26, 30 Apr. 1833, 27 Feb. 1834, and inquiry into agricultural distress, 21 Feb. 1834, and in the majority against reducing the corn duties, 7 Mar. 1834. That year he became a vice-president of the Bicester Agricultural Society.5Morning Post, 24 Nov. 1834. He voted for church rates to be replaced by a land tax, 21 Apr. 1834, but drew the line at Irish church appropriation. He brought up petitions for the factory bill, 18 Apr. 1833, the abolition of colonial slavery, 15 May 1833, better observance of the Sabbath, 25 Apr., 21 May 1834, and relief for Dissenters, 7 May 1834, but against the admission of Dissenters to the Universities, 21 May 1834.

At the 1835 general election Weyland offered again for Oxfordshire as a ‘landholder and farmer’. Alluding to the political crisis created by the king’s dismissal of the Whigs, he welcomed the new premier Peel’s declaration ‘to concede, as far as concession can be made with safety’ and promised to give the ministry ‘a fair trial’. Challenged on the hustings about his absenteeism, he refuted claims that ‘he had only been present for 6 of the 58 divisions’ in the 1834 session, and ‘took a chalk’ for having supported malt tax reduction. He was again returned unopposed. 6Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 3, 17 Jan. 1835; Morning Post, 15 Jan. 1835; Parliamentary Testbook (1835), 169.

Weyland duly supported Peel on the speakership, 19 Feb., and the address, 26 Feb., and divided against Irish church appropriation, 2 Apr. 1835, having attended the meeting of dissident reformers at 5 Carlton Gardens on 23 Feb. 1835 summoned by Stanley, who that day listed him among the ‘Derby Dilly’.7R. Stewart, The Foundation of the Conservative Party, 1830-67 (1978), 376. More conspicuous in the lobbies during his last parliament, he divided steadily with the opposition to the reappointed Whig ministry over municipal reform and Irish church reform, and taking his cue from Stanley, ‘slid over the gangway to the Conservative benches’ in 1836.8A. Hawkins, The Forgotten Prime Minister: the 14th Earl of Derby (2007), i. 168, 175, 187. He continued to back the agricultural interest in the lobbies, especially the initiatives of Chandos, with whom he helped to found the Central London Agricultural Association in December 1835.9Lancashire Gazette, 19 Dec. 1835.Speaking in support of malt tax repeal at a meeting of the Banbury Agricultural Association the following year, he complained that ministers ‘had repealed taxes oppressing trade, forgetful that any tax existed on agriculture’, and protested against the ‘violation of private property’ resulting from railway bills, ‘many of which he had opposed’.10Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 3 Dec. 1836.

At the 1837 general election Weyland initially offered again as a ‘supporter of the constitution’ as ‘established in the revolution of 1688’, who was ‘willing to support all temperate and well-considered reform’. The appearance of a new Liberal candidate and the unwillingness of the Conservatives to again relinquish one of the seats made it ‘impossible to avoid a contest’, however, and finding himself passed over by the newly formed Conservative Association for another candidate he retired.11Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 1, 8, 22 July 1837; Eastwood, ‘Oxfordshire’, 109. Speaking at their dinner the following month, he justified his career, saying that ‘though he was a reformer, he was not a revolutionist (cheers)’ and could never support a ministry kept in office by ‘men who entertained extreme and dangerous opinions’.12Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 12 Aug. 1837.‘Weyland had entered into Parliament as a reformer’, noted a meeting of Deddington’s Conservatives, ‘but finding that the Popish faction were going to great lengths (and that he could no longer conscientiously support their measures), like an honest man he changed sides’.13Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 2 Sept. 1837. He does not appear to have sought a return to the Commons.

On the death without issue in 1854 of his elder brother John, a noted critic of the new poor law and Malthusian population theory, Weyland inherited his family’s Norfolk and Suffolk estates, including Woodrising, where he took up residence and died in October 1864.14Gent. Mag. (1864), ii. 802; Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 22 Oct. 1864. By his will, dated 14 July 1858, all his real estate, which included leasehold properties in George Lane, Botolph Lane and Eastcheap, London, passed to his elder son John Weyland (1821-1902), who had already acquired his Oxfordshire estates.15PROB 11/2194/502; IR26/2016/262. Woodeaton remained in family hands until 1912.16Reports of Oxfordshire Archaeological Society (1917), 115.