BATHURST, Henry George, Lord Apsley (1790-1866), of 16 Arlington Street, London, Mdx.

Lord Apsley was born at Apsley House, Hyde Park, and became a favourite companion of the duke of Wellington, on whose staff he served in a non-military capacity at the battle of Waterloo.1In 1807 his father sold Apsley House to Richard Wellesley, who in turn sold it to the duke in 1817. He sat largely unopposed for Cirencester on his father’s interest for two decades prior to 1832, during which time he served as an unpaid commissioner for Indian affairs and as a clerk to his father as teller of the exchequer.2HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 160; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1833), 86. He supported Lord Liverpool’s ministry in which his father was a senior figure,3As well as serving as teller of the court of exchequer from 1790, Earl Bathurst was clerk of the crown from 1800, and a lord of the admiralty, 1783-9, president of the board of trade, 1807-12, master of the mint, 1807-12, foreign secretary, 1809, secretary of war and the colonies, 1812-27, and lord president of the council, 1828-30: N. Thompson, ‘Bathurst, Henry, third Earl Bathurst’, Oxf. DNB, iv. 354-5. and despite having been a ‘die-hard’ opponent of Catholic relief voted for emancipation in 1829. He was a consistent opponent of the reform bills, but rarely spoke in the House, his taciturnity incurring the displeasure of Sir Robert Peel in November 1830.4HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 216-8.

The chairman of the Gloucestershire True Blue Club, Apsely had not faced a challenge at Cirencester since 1818.5Morning Post, 23 Jan. 1833; Standard, 12 Aug. 1833. At the 1832 general election Philip Pleydell Bouverie, brother of the 3rd earl of Radnor, offered ‘upon reform principles’ but withdrew after a disappointing canvass, leaving Apsley to be returned unopposed for what was then described as ‘the very hotbed of Toryism’.6Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 13 Dec. 1832; HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 406-7. He is not known to have spoken in the following sessions or to have introduced a bill or sat on a select committee. In his increasingly rare appearances at the House he voted against O’Connell’s amendment to the address, 8 Feb. 1833, and in favour of the second reading of the Irish coercion bill, 11 Mar. He divided against Matthias Attwood’s motion for currency reform, 24 Apr., and George Grote’s ballot motion, 25 Apr., and presented a petition against slavery, 29 Apr.7Hansard, 29 Apr. 1833, vol. 17, c. 722. He was in the minority that opposed Colonel Thomas Henry Davies’s motion for an address thanking the king for his judicious policy regarding the affairs of Portugal, 6 June, and voted for striking out the 147^th clause of the Irish Church temporalities bill, which proposed that parliament dispose of surplus money proceeding from the sale of bishops’ lands, 24 June. He presented a petition from the inhabitants of Cirencester against proposed arrangements relative to the bank charter, 27 June, and was in the minority that divided against the third reading of the Irish Church temporalities bill, 8 July.8Morning Chronicle, 28 June 1833. He is not thought to have participated in any significant division in the 1834 session, other than voting in the minority against the second reading of George Wood’s bill for admitting Dissenters to the universities, 20 June 1834. In July 1834 Apsley succeeded to his father’s title and estates.9CJ, lxxxix. 539.

Lord Bathurst’s later years were apparently ‘unmarked by any of those great public services which so distinguished the lives of some of his illustrious ancestors’.10HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 218. He died at his seat in Cirencester after a long illness in May 1866 and was buried in the family vault at the abbey church on 1 June.11Pall Mall Gazette, 26 May 1866; Morning Post, 4 June 1866. His effects were sworn at under £90,000, and he was succeeded by his brother, William Lennox Bathurst (1791-1878), Tory MP for Weobley, 1812-16, and clerk to the privy council, 1827-60, who was described at the time as ‘probably better acquainted with the politics of a most important era in our history than any other living man’.12Nat. Probate Calendar, Index of Wills, 1861-1941 (13 Sept. 1866); HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 161-2; Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 2 June 1866.