SHIRLEY, Evelyn John (1788-1856), of Eatington Park, Warwickshire; Lough Fea, co. Monaghan

‘An ultra Tory, opposed to every species of radical innovation and change’ and ‘a thorough church and state man’, Shirley’s reactionary opinions, which cost him one election, were expressed in the division lobby rather than in the chamber.1Rev. R. Morris, Funeral sermon preached … on death of Evelyn John Shirley (1858), 15-16. Hailing from a junior branch of the earls Ferrers, based in Warwickshire, Shirley also possessed a large estate in county Monaghan, which his ancestors had inherited from the descendants of the Devereux family, earls of Essex. Shirley’s influence secured his return for county Monaghan in 1826, and although he was proud of his votes against repeal of the Test Acts, Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform, he was forced to withdraw at the 1831 general election.2‘Shirley, Evelyn John’, HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 94-6 (at 95); Morning Post, 27 Jan. 1837.

It was generally assumed that Shirley would be returned unopposed with a Whig for the new constituency of South Warwickshire at the 1832 general election. However, his nomination speech, in which he ‘abused all those who differed from him; in the most violent, & unmeasured terms’, provoked reformers into starting a second candidate, who beat Shirley to second place by thirteen votes.3Sir George Philips, ‘Memoirs’, MS., i. 310, Warwickshire Record Office, MI 247; Morn. Chro., 20 Dec. 1832; Warwickshire Advertiser, 15, 22 Dec. 1832. In July 1836 Shirley was returned for a vacancy for the same constituency after winning an easy victory over his Whig opponent. The triumph owed more to the effectiveness of the local Conservative party machine than Shirley’s exertions, as the deaths of his mother and one of his sons meant that he was absent for much of the campaign.4The Times, 24, 29, 30 June 1836; The Standard, 27 June 1836. He faced no further contests.

Back in Parliament Shirley’s first act was to vote against the appropriation clause of the Irish church bill.5Morning Post, 27 Jan. 1837. He told local supporters in January 1837 that he thought that ‘all reforms ought to projected and carried out by the friends, and not the enemies, of the institutions of the country’, and he promised them he would always oppose ‘a parcel of Radicals bring[ing] forward violent and destructive measures’.6The Times, 27, 28 Jan. 1837; Morning Post, 27 Jan. 1837. Shirley regularly cast votes in defence of protection and the established church. Despite his fervent Evangelicalism, which included employing ‘Bible inspectors’ to convert tenants on his Irish estate, he opposed the immediate cessation of slave apprenticeships in 1838.7K.T. Hoppen, Elections, politics, and society in Ireland 1832-1885 (1984), 123. He was also less interested in the social questions which animated many of his paternalist colleagues, and voted against a ten hour day in factories, 22 Mar., 13 May 1844, though he supported the 1847 factory bill.

Shirley and his heir, Evelyn Philip, who had been returned for county Monaghan in 1841, supported the 1843 Irish arms bill, and in the same session he opposed O’Brien’s motion to redress Irish grievances. Such issues probably had added significance for Shirley, given the widespread unrest on his Monaghan estate in April 1843, when a combination of demographic pressure and longstanding mismanagement encouraged tenants to agitate for a rent reduction on the death of an unpopular agent.8The Times, 10, 18, 19, 25 Apr. 1843; W. Steuart Trench, Realities of Irish life (4th edn., 1869), 63-6, 70-7; P.J. Duffy, ‘Assisted emigration from the Shirley estate, 1843-54’, Clogher Record, 14 (1992), 7-62 (at 13-15); idem, ‘Management problems on a large estate in mid-nineteenth century Ireland: William Steuart Trench’s report on the Shirley estate in 1843’, Clogher Record, 16 (1997), 101-122 (at 101-2); Hoppen, Elections, politics, and society, 111. Shirley, who lived part of the year on the estate, eventually and reluctantly abandoned his hardline policy after advice from his new agent William Steuart Trench, who recalled the affair in his memoir Realities of Irish life.9Trench, Realities of Irish life, 70-2, 81-2, 88. Despite agreeing to reductions, a further agitation in June 1843 led to an affray in which a man was shot dead.10Ibid., 86-8; The Times, 10 June 1843. Privately, Trench was scathing about the estate’s policy of ‘making a profit on every trifling transaction’, and pointedly contrasted Shirley’s position as a ‘large and opulent proprietor’ with the beggary of his tenants.11Qus. from Trench’s report, dated 11 June 1843, Duffy, ‘Management problems’, 105-6. The report is reprinted in full, ibid., 112-20.

Although Shirley seems to have reluctantly adopted many of Trench’s recommendations for the running of the estate, the episode had little effect on his political or religious views.12Duffy, ‘Management problems’, 111. He opposed the 1845 Maynooth college bill and in the same year was one of the founder members of the ultra-Protestant National Club. He divided against further Roman Catholic relief in 1847 and against Russell’s Jewish disabilities bill the following year. He cast votes against the repeal of the navigation laws and in favour of Disraeli’s motion for agricultural relief, 15 Mar. 1849.

Shirley, who had long been rumoured to be about to stand aside for a younger representative, finally did so in May 1849.13The Times, 6 Oct. 1845; 8 June 1849. He died at Lough Fea, the seat he had built on his Irish estate during the 1820s, in December 1856 and was succeeded by his eldest son Evelyn Philip Shirley (1812-82), Conservative MP for County Monaghan, 1841-7, and South Warwickshire, 1852-65.14Gent. Mag. (1857), i. 253.