ANSON, George (1797-1857), of Shugborough, near Lichfield, Staffordshire; 32 Curzon Street, Westminster, Middlesex

A handsome aristocratic soldier, Anson was storekeeper and then clerk of ordnance in the Whig governments of 1835-41 and 1846-52. The public record gives little indication of his personal charm, which was his most formidable political attribute. Colonel Anson (as he was generally known) seldom spoke in Parliament, except during debates on army and ordnance estimates, and rarely at any length. His predecessor as MP for South Staffordshire, Edward John Littleton, Lord Hatherton, was often critical of Anson’s inattentiveness to constituency interests. And yet, after Anson’s death Hatherton wrote that he was:

the finest illustration of the fascination of perfect manner known in his time. With the most pleasing … perfection of address he seemed to be thinking only of those he was with, and seemed naturally anxious to please everybody. With strong good sense he seldom obtruded his opinions, never if he thought they might not be acceptable; was always cheerful and gracious and winning. Accordingly, while men of far more experience and power and higher claims failed in their objects, he seemed to do what he liked and to have what he liked. Every step in his extraordinary career was due to his irresistible personal address, not in the sense of dexterity and craft, which he never employed, but to his natural appearance and manner.1Hatherton Journal, 22 Feb. 1858, Staffs. RO, D260/M/7/5/26/75.

Anson was the younger son of Thomas Anson, 1st Viscount Anson, of Shugborough, Staffordshire. A Whig by birth, Anson, like his uncle Sir George Anson, MP for Lichfield, 1806-41, pursued a military career and served with Wellington at Waterloo.2HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 68. In 1819 Anson was returned for Great Yarmouth on the family interest after his brother, Thomas William Anson, succeeded as 2nd Viscount Anson.3HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 289. The Anson family’s purchase of the Paston estate in the late eighteenth century had given them an interest in Great Yarmouth, and the Anson brothers had Norfolk connections through their maternal grandfather Thomas Coke, Whig MP and famous agricultural improver. He was shortly after described by another new MP as ‘the best looking man I know’.4Agar Ellis to Ralph Sneyd, 1 Mar. 1819, Keele University Library, Sneyd MS, qu. in HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 74. Anson voted with the Whig opposition during the 1820s, but was better known in society as a ‘perfect beau’ and marksman than for his political activity. He supported the Grey ministry’s reform bills of 1831-2.5HP Commons, iv. 68-70.

Anson appeared to have missed almost all the divisions of importance in the first two sessions of the reformed Commons, although according to Charles Dod, he was ‘friendly to corporation reform, and the vote by ballot, if it should be found necessary’.6Dod’s parliamentary companion (1833), 86. A rare vote was recorded against Harvey’s motion for a select committee on the pension list, 18 Feb. 1834. He served on a number of select committees, most importantly the 1833 inquiry into English municipal corporations.7PP 1833 (344), xiii. 2. Combined with his silence in debate, Anson had made little mark in the reformed House by the time of his defeat for Great Yarmouth at the 1835 general election.8McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 343.

On Melbourne’s return to office, Anson was appointed as principal storekeeper of the ordnance in April 1835. An attempt to come in for a vacancy at Staffordshire South, where his brother’s estate was situated, the following month was unsuccessful. Anson had described himself as ‘a constant advocate of popular rights’, but Edmund Peel, Conservative MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, had sniped that his parliamentary career had ‘been inconsistent and characterised by tergiversation’.9Derby Mercury, 27 May 1835. He eventually secured a berth at Stoke-on-Trent in February 1836, and now became more regular in his attendance, supporting the Melbourne administration in all key divisions, including on Irish church and municipal reform and Spring Rice’s 1837 bill to replace church rates with revenue from pew rents. He made brief interventions on the army and ordnance estimates, 11 Mar., 13 Apr. 1836.

Aided by his brother (who had been created 1st earl of Lichfield in 1831), Anson topped the poll for Staffordshire South at the 1837 general election, when he voiced support for a revision of the corn laws.10Staffordshire Advertiser, 5 Aug. 1837. He defended his brother, the postmaster-general, over a controversial appointment to the Edinburgh post office, 12 Mar. 1838, but otherwise limited his spoken contributions to the ordnance estimates and related issues.11Hansard, 27 Mar. 1839, vol. 46, c. 1235; 20 Mar. 1840, vol. 52, cc. 1286, 1298-9. However, out of doors, Anson was an impressive speaker. The Burton brewer, Michael Thomas Bass, later Liberal MP for Derby, was rarely star-struck, but after seeing Anson address a public meeting at Wolverhampton in January 1840, he was moved to write to Lord Lichfield in uncharacteristically effusive language:

Colonel Anson was everything you could have desired; my brother and I both agreed that often as we have heard him speak, and always speak better than most men we ever heard, we never saw him manifest such decided superiority as he did on Thursday night; his defence of the ministry was as straightforward & manly as it was judicious and able, and I am persuaded successful too, of wh. there was abundant proof in its reception and the feeling exhibited … all he said of himself was marked by that frank bearing, pleasing & spirited manner & countenance & requisite tact, which have always made him in my mind the most acceptable to his audience of all the men I ever heard in my life; this is not at all an uncommon opinion; I have heard it from Tories repeatedly.12Michael Thomas Bass to Lord Lichfield, 4 Jan. 1840, Staffs. RO, D615/P(P)/3/11.

In the same month, Anson acted as second for Edward Horsman, Whig MP for Cockermouth, after he challenged James Bradshaw, Conservative MP for Canterbury, to a duel for insulting the Queen. Anson’s personal qualities helped to defuse the row.13Greville memoirs, iv. 253-5.

Anson supported the revisions to the sugar and timber duties proposed in Baring’s 1841 budget, and also backed a fixed duty on corn in 1841, having earlier divided in favour of Charles Villiers’s motions to reconsider the corn laws, 18 Mar. 1839, 26 May 1840. He was in the minority that opposed Peel’s motion of no confidence in the Whig ministry, 4 June 1841. Despite his brother’s attempts to withdraw him to the safety of Lichfield, the family’s pocket borough, Anson was returned unopposed for Staffordshire South at the 1841 general election after a controversial compromise between Whig and Conservative magnates. This was probably just as well given that Hatherton had complained that Anson had ‘entire[ly] neglect[ed] … his county, its families, his constituents & their affairs for four years’ and was ‘entirely ignorant of his unpopularity’.14Hatherton journal, 5 May 1841, Staffs. RO, D260/M/7/5/26/22.

In the first half of the 1840s Anson loyally followed Lord John Russell into the division lobby, opposing Peel’s revision of the corn laws and reintroduction of the income tax in 1842 but supporting his 1845 Maynooth college bill. In a rare speech in favour of Cobden’s motion for an inquiry into the effects of the corn laws on agriculturalists, 13 Mar. 1845, he reaffirmed his support for a fixed duty, which he believed would ‘insure greater steadiness of price’. His expectations of office were frustrated by the inability of the Whigs to form a ministry in December 1845 due to Lord Grey’s opposition to Palmerston’s appointment as foreign secretary: ‘What a ground for breaking up a Govt formed to carry out measures of great national importance?’, he complained.15George Anson to Lord Hatherton, 20 Dec. 1845, Staffs. RO, D260/M/7/5/27/16. Although Anson supported Peel’s plan to repeal the corn laws, he had a low opinion of the conduct of the Peelite ministers in abandoning their commitment to agricultural protection, writing that ‘place has evidently achieved an easy victory over principle’.16Anson to Hatherton, 25 Dec. 1845, Staffs. RO, D260/M/7/5/27/16.

By 1846 Anson had become a director of the London and North Western railway company, and was increasingly interested in railway debates. For example, he argued that a public commission rather than separate select committees would be the best way of scrutinising the plethora of railway bills, 26 Jan. 1846. Although his railway interests clashed with those of Hatherton, who complained that Anson ‘has employed every act & energy to maintain the L[ondon] & N[orth] W[estern] monopoly in this district, & opposed us establishing competition’, the colonel was returned unopposed at the 1847 general election.17Hatherton journal, 30 July 1847, Staffs. RO, D260/M/7/5/26/43.

On the accession of Russell to the premiership in June 1846, Anson had been appointed clerk of ordnance, the government department with responsibility for supplying weapons, ammunition and clothes for the army and navy. He voted with Russell’s ministry in all key divisions. His main duty was to prepare and secure parliamentary approval for the annual ordnance estimates. However, this was no easy task during a period in which Russell’s government was under severe pressure from parliamentary radicals, led by Joseph Hume and Richard Cobden, to retrench government expenditure, especially relating to defence. Accordingly, Anson had to justify spending increases, usually on grounds of national security and efficiency, while emphasising savings to counter accusations of wastefulness. Although the estimates increased from £2,543,569 in 1846-7 to £2,679,157 in 1847-8, they had been trimmed back to £2,437,000 by 1852.18Hansard, 5 Mar. 1847, vol. 90, c. 981; 26 Mar. 1852, vol. 120, c. 180. Anson was also careful to publicise the economies that were concealed by the overall figures. Between 1849 and 1851, he boasted to the House, savings of £580,646 had been made in ordnance expenditure.19Hansard, 31 Mar. 1851, vol. 115, c. 831.

Anson was reasonably successful in heading off criticism from the parliamentary inquiries that examined the ordnance estimates in this period. He was a member of the 1849 and 1850 select committees, and was also required to give evidence and produce papers.20PP 1849 (277), ix. 2; 1849 (499), ix. 6; 1850 (662), x. 4. The 1849 inquiry was forced to acknowledge that ordnance expenditure was largely beyond the control of the department, as it depended on the demands made on it by the army and navy.21PP 1849 (499), ix. 73. Anson also nullified a radical amendment criticising the board of ordnance.22Ibid., 86. The following year, even Hume acknowledged that Anson ‘had done everything in his power to lead the inquiry to a satisfactory result’.23Hansard, 8 Apr. 1850, vol. 110, c. 40. Overall, Anson was successful in securing the safe passage of the annual ordnance estimates. Although Hume continued to complain that the present system was ‘bad, expensive and complex’, the defects in the department were not fully exposed until the Crimean War.24Hansard, 26 Mar. 1852, vol. 120, c. 181.

Anson was in the minority that supported Russell in the division on the militia bill, 20 Feb. 1852, and he offered a strong defence of the late Whig ministry at the 1852 general election, when he was again returned unopposed.25Staffordshire Advertiser, 17 July 1852. He was not given office in the Aberdeen ministry, but divided with the free traders in all the important divisions of the 1852-3 session. Having been promoted to chairman of the London and North Western Railway in 1852, Anson reiterated his view to an 1853 parliamentary inquiry that a commission under the board of trade, rather than separate select committees would be the best way of scrutinising railway bills and ensuring the consolidation and coherence of the national railway network.26PP 1852-53 (736), xxxviii. 661-7.

Anson vacated his seat in August 1853 after being appointed as commander-in-chief of the Bengal army, and transferred to the Madras army the following year. In November 1855 he was promoted to commander-in-chief in India. After his death from cholera in May 1857 on his way to face the Indian mutiny, the Times commented that Anson ‘had not an opportunity of acquiring distinction’ in his role.27The Times, 13 July 1857. As Charles Greville, mourning the loss of his ‘oldest and most intimate friend’, noted ‘there is a disposition in some quarters to make if possible poor Anson the scapegoat … now that he is dead and cannot defend himself’.28Greville memoirs, viii. 114. Retired soldiers sniped that Anson was ‘extremely ill qualified’ and ‘utterly inexperienced in practical military affairs’, while the Daily News implied that he had owed his appointment to political favour rather than his abilities.29H.T. Tucker, letter, The Times, 22 July 1857; Daily News, 1 July 1857. However, Greville, with whom he corresponded, reported that he had ‘warned the Government against leaving India without adequate protection, and constantly urged the expediency of sending out fresh troops’.30Greville memoirs, viii. 114.

Anson left no male heirs. Probate was granted to his widow, who died of accidental laudanum poisoning in 1858, and then to his eldest daughter, Isabella Katherine, wife of Richard William Penn Curzon, 3rd Earl Howe.31HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 70. His nephew and fellow soldier, Augustus Anson, was Liberal MP for Lichfield, 1859-68.