BLACKETT, Christopher (1787-1847), of Wylam Hall, nr. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumb.

Blackett, whose family had resided at Wylam, eight miles west of Newcastle, since the 17th century, entered the army early in life. In a ‘perfunctory’ career, he was captain in the 18th Hussars and served under the duke of Wellington in the Peninsular campaigns and at Waterloo. On the return of peace he settled at the family seat of Oakwood, north of Wylam, and inherited the family’s estate with its coal mine in 1829. Although he joined Brooks’s Club, 3 June 1829, he was returned unopposed in the Tory interest for Bere Alston in 1830 and opposed the Grey ministry’s reform bill, 22 Mar. 1831. He did not seek re-election at the ensuing general election, however, and by the autumn of 1832, he claimed to be a sincere supporter of reform.1HP Commons, 1820-32, iv. 284. In 1836 he contested a lively by-election at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Brought forward by local Liberals who wished to field a pro-appropriation candidate against a more conservative opponent, Blackett undertook a short canvass of just one day, but was defeated.2The Times, 29 July 1836; Newcastle Courant, 30 July 1836. He came forward for Northumberland South the following year, calling for the ‘granting of equal laws and equal justice to our Irish fellow-subjects’.3Newcastle Courant, 28 July 1837. Absent at the nomination because of influenza, he was returned unopposed.4Newcastle Courant, 4 Aug. 1837.

One of Blackett’s earliest votes was against the ballot, 15 Feb. 1838.5Dod’s Parl. Companion (1838), 82. An advocate of ‘Whig principles’, he generally supported Melbourne’s ministry, dividing in the majority for the appropriation of Irish church revenues, 15 May 1838, for the Irish municipal corporations bill, 8 Mar. 1839, and for Lord John Russell’s motion on the government of Ireland, 19 Apr. 1839. He backed Charles Villiers’ motion to repeal the corn laws, 18 Mar. 1839. A rare speaker, his only two known contributions came in May 1838, when he declared that he would push for the abolition of colonial slavery ‘until the last shackle should fall from the limbs of the slave’, and later urged the government to support the claims of British subjects with regard to loss of property by the Danish war.6Hansard, 22 May 1838, vol. 43, c. 102; 24 May 1838, vol. 43, cc. 157-8. Blackett is not known to have served on any select committees during his one parliament and, with his health declining, he was largely absent from parliament during the sessions of 1840 and 1841, though he was in the minority against Peel’s no confidence motion, 6 June 1841. He retired into private life at the dissolution. He died in January 1847 at the house of his brother-in-law, Robert Ingham, at Westoe, South Shields, leaving all his property to his eldest son, John Fenwick Burgoyne Blackett (1821-56), Liberal member for Newcastle, 1852-6, on whose death it passed to his second son, Edward Algernon Blackett (1824-73), a naval officer.7Gent. Mag. (1847), i. 548; HP Commons, 1820-32, iv. 284. His papers are located in the Northumberland Record Office.8Blackett (Wylam) MSS, Northumb. RO.