CHAYTOR, William Richard Carter (1805-1871), of Witton Castle, co. Durham and Croft, Yorks.

Chaytor was the eldest son of Sir William Chaytor, who represented Sunderland as a Liberal, 1832-5. 1Draws on Papers of Sir William Chaytor (1771-1847): a list with extracts, ed. M.Y. Ashcroft (1993). In 1816 his father had purchased the Witton Castle estate and coalfield in county Durham, and three years later had succeeded to the prestigious Croft estate, on the Yorkshire bank of the River Tees near Darlington. Following a chequered schooling in York which included an expulsion for misbehaviour and fostering disobedience among his fellow pupils, Chaytor was admitted to Magdalen College at the age of twenty, but elected to go on a continental tour rather than take a degree. Upon his return he assisted his father in the running of the family estate at Tunstall, and became head of the Sunderland branch of the Chaytor, Frankland and Company bank.2HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 636. At the 1830 general election Chaytor canvassed for his father at Durham City, when he came a close third, and following counsel’s advice, was put up as a stopgap for him at the by-election of March 1831.3The Times, 23 Mar. 1831; Durham Chronicle, 2, 9 Apr. 1831. Advocating reform and support for Grey’s ministry, he was subsequently elected and thereafter acted as his father’s man of business in the Commons but made no major speeches.4HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 636.

Following the failure of his father to secure government backing to replace him at the 1832 general election, Chaytor offered again at Durham City.5Durham Chronicle, 4 May 1832. His insistence that he and his fellow Reformer ‘were both standing on the same principles’ and he would be glad to see ‘friends of those principles vote for them both’, infuriated Lord Londonderry, head of the Conservative interest, and compromised his re-election, but after a bitter campaign, he was narrowly returned in second place.6The electors’ scrap book: a re-publication of the addresses and speeches of the several candidates for the city, and for the northern and southern divisions of the county of Durham (1832), 17; Chaytor Papers, 175; Newcastle Courant, 15 Dec. 1832. However, Chaytor neglected his duties in the reformed parliament. He attended infrequently, made no known speeches, and by 1834 was rarely sober.7Chaytor Papers, ix. See also Sir William Chaytor to William Chaytor, 11 Mar. 1834, about his neglect of his political duties, and 10 July 1834, about his lack of sobriety: Chaytor Papers, N. Yorks. Co. RO, MIC 1879-1882. When present in the Commons, he supported Grey’s ministry on most major issues, including Althorp’s motion to replace church rates with a grant raised from the land tax, 21 Apr. 1834, and he was in the minority for Joseph Hume’s resolutions in favour of economy in public service, 14 Feb. 1833.

In November 1834 Chaytor’s father wrote to Lord Durham, offering to transfer his Durham interest to him, stating that ‘my eldest son ... does not feel inclined to stand again for the City partly on account of ill health during his residence in London and his dislike of it when there’.8Sir William Chaytor to Lord Durham, 25 Nov. 1834, Chaytor Papers, 206. Unsurprisingly, Chaytor retired at the dissolution, and is not known to have participated in public life thereafter. His financial position became precarious in 1836 when his father ‘cut him off’ for marrying ‘beneath him’.9Chaytor Papers, ix. In 1847 he succeeded his father in the baronetcy and to the Croft estate, which was now heavily encumbered by the costly Clervaux Castle, built by his father following his retirement from the Commons.10HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 636. Chaytor died at Scrafton Lodge, his North Riding home, in February 1871, and was succeeded by the son of his first marriage, William, on whom the baronetcy and entailed estates devolved.11The Times, 23 Feb. 1871. Chaytor’s correspondence with his father is located in the North Yorkshire Record Office.12N. Yorks. Co. RO, MIC 1879-1882, 1910.