SOMERSET, Lord Robert Edward Henry (1776-1842), of Down Ormey, Glos.

One of the four sons of the 5^th duke of Beaufort who had held seats in the unreformed parliament, Lord Edward Somerset (as he was known) was a distinguished military officer who had commanded the household brigade of cavalry at Waterloo. He had sat in eight parliaments as a Conservative and follower of Pitt and Lord Liverpool until 1831.1For his military and political career prior to 1832, see E.M. Lloyd, ‘Somerset, Lord (Robert) Edward Henry’, Oxford DNB, li. 581-2; Gent. Mag. (1843), i. 199; HP Commons, 1790-1820, v. 225-6; HP Commons, 1820-1832, vii. 185-7. He had opposed the reform bill and, eager to ensure that the ‘immoderate spirit of innovation’ would inflict ‘no further outrages … upon the Constitution’, he contested West Gloucestershire in 1832.2Morning Post, 7 Aug. 1832. However, after delivering a lengthy address made ‘scarcely audible’ by a disapproving crowd at Dursley, he was narrowly defeated in the poll by two Reformers.3Morning Chronicle, 20 Aug. 1832; Bristol Mercury, 22 Dec. 1832. With the support of the sitting member, who had also become the new patron, he came forward for the close borough of Cirencester in August 1834 following the elevation of Lord Apsley to the earldom of Bathurst. After being returned unopposed in the morning, he attended the Gloucester Pitt Club dinner that evening.4Morning Chronicle, 5 Aug. 1834; Standard, 7, 9 Aug. 1834.

Somerset was appointed surveyor-general of ordnance in December 1834, and shortly afterwards at a local meeting he expressed his support for the construction of the Great Western Railway, promising to give it his ‘utmost parliamentary support’. At the 1835 general election he pledged to uphold ‘the ancient institutions under which the country had acquired honour and prosperity’ and was returned at Cirencester in second place after being challenged by a reformer.5Bristol Mercury, 13 Dec. 1834; Parliamentary Test Book (1835), 148; Morning Post, 8 Jan. 1835; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 8 Jan. 1835. He sat alongside his nephews, Lord Granville Somerset, MP for Monmouth, 1816-48, who had played a leading part in organising opposition to Lord Grey’s reform administration, and Lord Worcester, who sat briefly for West Gloucestershire in 1835.6M. Escott, ‘Somerset MP, Lord Granville Charles Henry’, Oxford DNB, li. 589-90.

Somerset does not appear to have spoken in the Commons at this period, and did not sit on any select committees or introduce any bills. He supported Charles Manners Sutton for the speakership, 19 Feb. 1835, and voted for the address, 26 Feb. He divided against Lord Chandos’s motion to repeal the malt tax, 10 Mar., and opposed Lord John Russell’s motions on Irish Church temporalities, 2, 7 Apr. He backed Sir William Follett’s attempts to protect the voting rights of freemen from the operation of the Municipal Corporations Act, 23 June, 16 July.7Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1836), 163. He opposed the address, 4 Feb. 1836, and voted against the third reading of the Irish municipal corporations bill, 28 Mar. Having been appointed colonel of his old regiment, now the 4^th light dragoons, 31 Mar. 1836, he divided against the abolition of flogging in the army, 13 Apr. 1836.8Lloyd, ‘Somerset, Lord (Robert) Edward Henry’, 582; Morning Post, 15 Apr. 1836. He voted against the government’s proposed reforms of the Irish Church and tithes, 3 June, supported the Lords’ amendments to the Irish municipal corporations bill, 10 June, and voted against the ballot, 23 June.

In the following session he opposed Spring Rice’s resolution for the abolition of church rates, 15 Mar., 23 May 1837, and divided against the third reading of the Irish municipal corporations bill, 11 Apr. He had been mentioned as a future candidate for West Gloucestershire in December 1835, but retired at the 1837 general election.9Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 10 Dec. 1835; Standard, 8 July 1837. He was appointed a general in 1841 and being once again ‘desirous of a military command’, unsuccessfully solicited the support of Sir Robert Peel for an appointment as governor of Gibraltar or, his preferred choice, Malta.10Somerset to Peel, 13 Jan. 1842: BL Add. MS 40500, f. 36. He died in London from a long-standing heart complaint which came to ‘a speedy and fatal result’ in September 1842.11HP Commons, 1820-1832, vii. 187; Lloyd, ‘Somerset, Lord (Robert) Edward Henry’, 582; Standard, 3 Sept. 1842. He requested ‘strict economy’ to be observed regarding his funeral arrangements, and asked only that a small marble tablet ‘shortly recording’ his military service be placed in the church at Badminton.12Prob. 11/1968/639. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Colonel Edward Arthur Somerset, Conservative MP for Monmouthshire, 1848-59, and West Gloucestershire, 1867-8. His will was proved at under £18,000, the residue of his estate being divided equally amongst his sons and unmarried daughters.13Stenton, Who’s Who of British MPs, i. 357; Prob. 8/235.