CHETWYND-TALBOT, Henry John, Viscount Ingestre (I) (1803-1868), of Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire

A scion of the High Tory aristocracy and a strong Protestant and protectionist, Ingestre was the heir to the earldom of Talbot, and related to the Cecils, marquesses of Salisbury, and Legges, earls of Dartmouth. His Anglo-Irish relations, including the Hills, marquesses of Downshire and the Beresfords, marquesses of Waterford, were staunch defenders of the Protestant Ascendancy. A regular contributor to naval debates, Ingestre was an indefatigable champion of the dubious inventions of ‘Captain’ Warner that would supposedly revolutionise naval warfare. Before the death of his elder brother, Ingestre had pursued a naval career, which was perhaps where he picked up his rough manners. The Tory diarist William Dyott described Ingestre as ‘a shallow man, and in his profession, tyrannical; his manners neither courteous nor highly polished’.1Dyott’s diary, ii. 286 (23 Jan. 1839). Lord Stanley wrote that ‘Personally he was disliked, his manners being rough and even repulsive’.2Disraeli, Derby, and the Conservative party: the political journal of Lord Stanley, 1849-69, ed. J.R. Vincent (1978), 334 (5 June 1868). However, on meeting Ingestre in 1843, Thomas Babington Macaulay was pleasantly surprised:

He is a violent Tory and passes for a rough surly man … However he was extremely cordial and insisted on introducing me to his wife, an agreeable and rather handsome young woman, with whom I had some pleasant chat.3Thomas Babington Macaulay to Mrs. Charles Trevelyan, 6 Sept. 1843, The letters of Thomas Babington Macaulay, ed. T. Pinney (1977), iv. 150.

Ingestre was first returned to Parliament in 1830, representing Hertford on the Cecil interest, and then sat in quick succession for Armagh and Dublin city. In the unreformed Parliament he was categorised as an Ultra Tory anti-reformer.4HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 641-4 (at 641-3); R. Stewart, The foundation of the Conservative party, 1830-1867 (1978), 373. Ingestre stood at Hertford at the 1832 general election, condemning the ‘revolutionary mania’ of the age.5Staffordshire Advertiser, 8 Dec. 1832. After a notoriously corrupt and violent contest, during which he hired gypsies and pugilists to intimidate his opponent’s supporters, he was elected.6N. Gash, Politics in the age of Peel (1949), 144, 206-7. He had time to oppose the proposed Irish coercion bill as ineffective, 19 Mar. 1833, before being unseated on petition, 2 Apr. 1833.7Hansard, 19 Mar. 1833, vol. 16, c. 864. He was put up at late notice to challenge Edward John Littleton’s re-election for South Staffordshire in June 1833, but did not go to the poll.8Dyott commented that ‘I did not think that Lord Ingestre was much known in the county’: Dyott’s diary, ii. 160 (1 June 1833); see also The Times, 28 May 1833; The Standard, 30 May 1833. Although he was absent, Ingestre was again put up for Hertford at the 1835 general election but finished third.9His barrister brother John Chetwynd-Talbot deputised for him during the campaign: Morning Chronicle, 6 Jan. 1835; Gash, Politics in the age of Peel, 207.

Ingestre was absent for the 1837 general election, when, after a fierce contest, he was elected in second place for South Staffordshire.10Staffordshire Advertiser, 1, 29 July 1837, 5 Aug. 1837. His brother again deputised for him. Having ‘no cash’, Ingestre brazenly refused to pay the election expenses of the unsuccessful second Conservative.11As Norman Gash has written, he ‘was not the kind of man to exercise charity at his own cost even towards a neighbour and a colleague’: Politics in the age of Peel, 251; Dyott’s diary, ii. 252, 276 (May 1837, 9 Aug. 1838). At Westminster, he cast votes against radical political reform and Irish church appropriation, and was a reliable opponent of free trade. He sided with the Conservatives in all the major party divisions, including the motions of no confidence in the Whig government, 31 Jan. 1840, 4 June 1841. He repeatedly complained that the navy was inadequately manned and that midshipmen and mates were underpaid compared to their foreign equivalents, 23 Apr. 1839, 21 Feb. 1840.12Hansard, 23 Apr. 1839, vol. 47, cc. 483-6; 21Feb. 1840, vol. 52, cc. 468-73; 28 Feb. 1840, vol. 52, cc. 792-3. This meant that the French had been able to insult the British flag at Vera Cruz with impunity, Ingestre protested in 1839.13Hansard, 22 Feb. 1839, vol. 45, cc. 811-12; 25 Feb. 1839, vol. 45, cc. 844-6; 4 Mar. 1839, vol. 45, cc. 1162-4. Another recurring theme of Ingestre’s naval speeches was his call for the resurrection of the defunct school of naval architecture which had provided training in the science and design of ship-building, 31 May 1838, 2 Mar. 1840.14Hansard, 31 May 1838, vol. 43, cc. 510-11; 2 Mar. 1840, vol. 52, cc. 832-4.

Ingestre was returned unopposed in a controversial compromise with his Whig colleague at the 1841 general election, having earlier denounced ‘the confederate band of Infidelity, Socialism, Whig Radicalism, Popery, and God knows what’ that supported Melbourne’s government.15Staffordshire Advertiser, 5 June 1841. Although Ingestre feigned dissatisfaction with the compromise, William Dyott accurately wrote that ‘it was pretty generally believed this proposal originated with Ingestre to spare a contest’ and save money.16Dyott’s diary, ii. 335, 343 (3 Mar. 1841, 14 June 1841). Indeed Ingestre had unsuccessfully pressed Lord Hatherton, leader of the local Whig peers, to sacrifice the Liberal seat at Walsall as the price for the compromise.17Viscount Ingestre to Lord Hatherton, 12 June 1841; Hatherton to Ingestre, 13 June 1841 (copy), Hatherton papers, Staffordshire Record Office, D260/M/7/5/27/14. After he voted in the majority that ejected the Whigs from office, 27 Aug. 1841, Ingestre lobbied for an appointment in Peel’s new administration, preferably the ‘adm[iralt]y or ordnance’.18Viscount Ingestre to Sir Robert Peel, 5 Sept. 1841, Add. 40487, f. 298. Peel replied that ‘your standing in the navy would absolutely preclude me from placing you at that Board [i.e. the Admiralty]. I must take old captains’.19Peel to Ingestre, 6 Sept. 1841, Add. 40487, f. 300.

Ingestre was absent from the votes on Peel’s 1842 revision of the corn laws, but backed the reintroduction of income tax and opposed Napier’s motion to exempt naval officers, 29 Apr. 1842.20Hansard, 29 Apr. 1842, vol. 62, c. 1316. An ardent protectionist and a member of the general committee of the Agricultural Protection Society established in 1844, Ingestre unexpectedly endorsed the 1845 Maynooth college bill even though he had hitherto always opposed the annual grant. He explained that unlike the Whigs, the Conservatives had reasserted the authority of the government and the law in Ireland before offering concessions, 19 May 1845.21Hansard, 19 May 1845, vol. 80, cc. 584-5. Nevertheless Ingestre vigorously opposed Peel’s plans to repeal the corn laws and opposed the consequent legislation at every stage.22E.S. Cayley, Reasons for the formation of the Agricultural Protection Society (1844), n.p.; Hansard, 27 Jan. 1846, vol. 83, cc. 301-3 He likened himself to a humble sailor who realised that his captain was ‘going in a false course’, 27 Jan. 1846.23Ibid., cc. 301-3 (at 302-3). Although he credited Peel with sincere motives, Ingestre was scathing about the ‘sudden and miraculous conversions’ of other frontbenchers, 24 Feb. 1846.24Hansard, 24 Feb. 1846, vol. 84, cc. 26-35 (at 34). Torn between his sympathy for repressive measures in Ireland and his antipathy to the government, he abstained in the division on the Irish coercion bill that turned out Peel, 25 June 1846.25Hansard, 25 June 1846, vol. 87, c. 1024. Ingestre reaffirmed his support for agricultural protection at the 1847 general election, when he was returned unopposed, and in his last significant Commons speech offered forthright opposition to the emerging campaign to repeal the navigation laws, 2 June 1848.26Staffordshire Advertiser, 7 Aug. 1847; Hansard, 2 June 1848, vol. 99, cc. 308-14.

Ingestre remained a vocal presence in navy debates throughout the 1840s. He lobbied for an improved system of promotion as part of a general reform of naval pay, pensions and employment, 4 Mar. 1842, 16 May 1843.27Hansard, 4 Mar. 1842, vol. 61, cc. 98-9; 16 May 1843, vol. 69, cc. 484-5. In 1842 and 1846 he backed Sir Charles Napier’s proposal that the admiralty board should consist exclusively of navy men and contain no civilians.28Hansard, 22 Mar. 1842, vol. 61, cc. 1053-4; 17 June 1846, vol. 87, cc. 622-3. He continued to draw attention to the quality of ship-design and building, and strongly supported the retention of flogging as necessary for naval discipline.29Hansard, 31 Mar. 1845, vol. 78, cc. 1283-4; 23 May 1845, vol. 80, cc. 821-2; 29 Apr. 1847, vol. 92, cc. 172-9 (naval architecture); 20 July 1846, vol. 87, c. 1347; 28 Jan. 1847, vol. 89, cc. 596-7 (flogging). Ingestre was the leading parliamentary champion of the inventions of Samuel Alfred Warner (1793/4-1853), a self-styled captain who claimed to have discovered an ‘invisible shell’ that would transform naval warfare.30A. McConnell, ‘Warner, Samuel Alfred (1793/4-1853)’, www.oxforddnb.com. Since the 1830s Warner had been lobbying the British government for money for his invention, the details of which were a closely-kept secret. Ingestre raised Warner’s case, 30 Sept. 1841, 20 May 1842, but stepped up his campaign after a spectacular experiment at Brighton, 17 July 1844.31Hansard, 30 Sept. 1841, vol. 59, cc. 1012-13; 20 May 1842, vol. 63, cc. 578-9, 580-1. From the shore a large crowd saw a vessel explode, apparently as a result of Warner’s invention. (In fact, the ship had been structurally weakened beforehand and rigged with ropes beneath the surface to effect the deception).32McConnell, ‘Warner’. Contending that the invention was of ‘paramount importance to the nation’, Ingestre successfully moved for government correspondence relating to Warner to be made public, 31 July 1844.33Hansard, 31 July 1844, vol. 76, cc. 1577-97, 1622. He later proposed an investigation into Warner’s invention, 13 July 1846, during which he was mocked by Sir Howard Douglas, a naval expert and leading critic of Warner, for his credulity.34Hansard, 13 July 1846, vol. 87, cc. 1071-97 (at 1091). Ingestre withdrew the motion, which was probably just as well given that the ‘Captain’s’ other invention, the ‘long-range’, supposedly capable of hitting targets several miles away, was widely discredited by a public experiment the following month.35McConnell, ‘Warner’. The ‘long-range’ was revealed to be a hot air balloon, randomly dropping missiles while going on its unpredictable journey.36Ibid. Consequently, Ingestre had few supporters for his motion for a secret committee on Warner’s inventions, 25 June 1847.37Hansard, 25 June 1847, vol. 93, cc. 921-33, 946.

Ingestre succeeded his father as 3rd Earl Talbot in early 1849 and held a household appointment in Derby’s 1852 government. Although Warner was now widely viewed as a charlatan, on 30 Jan. 1852, Talbot wrote to the Times, to argue that ‘by the Warner Inventions the largest ships may be instantaneously, certainly, and cheaply destroyed’.38Qu. in S.A. Warner, Facts and documents relating to our national defences (1853), 7. He unsuccessfully moved for another inquiry in the Lords in May 1852 but was spared further embarrassment by Warner’s death in December 1853.39McConnell, ‘Warner’; Hansard, 14, 21 May 1852, vol. 121, cc. 620-8, 855-73. Talbot claimed the estates and titles of his late Catholic kinsman Bertram Talbot, 17th earl of Shrewsbury, who died in 1856, after a lengthy legal battle. The late earl had intended a younger son of the Catholic duke of Norfolk to be his successor, but the House of Lords endorsed Talbot’s claim in June 1858 after they went back almost 400 years to find a ‘common ancestor’ between Talbot and his distant cousin.40The Times, 6 June 1868. As a result Talbot became the 18th earl of Shrewsbury (by which title he was thereafter known), the 18th earl of Waterford in the Irish peerage, and inherited Alton Towers and extensive estates in Shropshire.41Ibid.

Shrewsbury was appointed to a ‘not very laborious office’ in the royal household in Derby’s second ministry, 1858-9.42Ibid. In 1864 he became president of the newly-established National Conservative Registration Society, a body of which both Derby and Disraeli disapproved. The latter wrote that the Society ‘has established a double management of the Party in the Country’ and ‘disturbed, perplexed and tend[ed] to break up that concentrated organisation’ which already existed. Although it was preferable that ‘the Society should cease to exist’, Disraeli wrote that the damage could be neutralised if the body focused on registration rather than electioneering, which had caused ‘much mischief’.43Benjamin Disraeli to Lord Shrewsbury, 20 May 1864, Benjamin Disraeli letters, ed. M.G. Wiebe et al (2009), viii. 355-6. The Society played no part in the 1865 general election and was superseded by an official party organisation in 1866.44See note in ibid., 356. Raised to admiral in 1865, Shrewsbury’s death three years later prompted Lord Stanley to write:

He had so managed his affairs, that though with the title he came into at least £40,000 a year, all on which he could lay his hands was gone, and it was only by the assistance of his friends that he was able to live in England. How he brought about this result no one knows, for he lived poorly, but he had a passion for speculations of all kinds, and was the dupe of every projector who came to him with a plausible story. … I believe that the bulk of his property was so settled that he could not greatly injure it.45Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative party, 334 (5 June 1868).

He was succeeded by his eldest son, Charles John Chetwynd-Talbot, viscount Ingestre (1830-77), Conservative MP for Stafford, 1857-9, North Staffordshire, 1859-65, and Stamford, 1868. Two of his other sons became MPs: Walter Cecil Chetwynd-Talbot (later Carpenter, 1834-1904), Conservative MP for Co. Waterford, 1859-65, and Reginald Arthur James Talbot (1841-1929), MP for Stafford, 1869-74, and governor of Victoria, 1904-8.46M. Stenton, Who’s who of British Members of Parliament (1976), i. 371-2.