ANSON, Hon. Augustus Henry Archibald (1835-1877), of Shugborough, nr. Lichfield, Staffs.

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A young Whig with a distinguished military record, the pugnacious Anson was one of the ‘leading spirits’ of the Adullamites, the dissident Liberals who brought down Earl Russell’s ministry over the reform question in 1866.1The Times, 22 Nov. 1877. However, Anson has received little scholarly attention compared to other Adullamites such as Robert Lowe, Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, Earl Grosvenor and Francis Wemyss-Charteris-Douglas, Lord Elcho.2On the Adullamites, see M. Cowling, 1867: Disraeli, Gladstone and revolution (1967); D.F. Sheppard, ‘The cave of Adullam and parliamentary reform 1865-1867’, Univ. of Toronto Ph. D. Thesis (1992); idem, ‘The cave of Adullam, household suffrage and the passage of the Second Reform Act’, Parliamentary History, 14 (1996), 149-72; J. Winter, ‘The cave of Adullam and parliamentary reform’, English Historical Review, 81 (1966), 38-55. Otherwise Anson’s political career was notable for taking ‘an active part, both in and out of Parliament, in the discussion of military questions’.3Birmingham Daily Post, 22 Nov. 1877.

Anson’s father, Thomas William Anson, 1st earl of Lichfield, was the leader of Staffordshire’s Whigs and possessed the dominant influence in Lichfield.4J.C. Wedgwood, Staffordshire parliamentary history, Collections for a history of Staffordshire (1934), iii. 74. He also served as postmaster-general in Lord Melbourne’s second ministry, 1835-41. Anson’s eldest brother Thomas George Anson, viscount Anson, was groomed for a political career and represented the family’s pocket borough 1847-54. However, Anson followed in the footsteps of his great-uncle Sir George Anson, MP for Lichfield 1806-41, and uncle Colonel George Anson, MP for Great Yarmouth 1819-35, Stoke 1836-7 and South Staffordshire 1837-53, by pursuing a distinguished military career.5Burke’s peerage (1949), 1221-2. He won renown for his bravery during the Crimean War, notably at the siege of Sebastopol, and in the Indian mutiny of 1857-8. During the latter campaign he served as aide-de-camp to General Grant. He saw action at Bulundshahr and Lucknow, and was wounded during the siege of Delhi and the assault on the Secundra Bagh. He was ‘repeatedly mentioned’ in despatches, and received the Victoria Cross for ‘conspicuous bravery’.6Birmingham Daily Post, 22 Nov. 1877.

Shortly after returning from India in 1859 Anson was returned unopposed on the family’s interest at Lichfield, promising to ‘firmly resist any measure of extensive enfranchisement’ and to oppose ‘secret voting, for the reason that the ballot is contrary to the spirit of the English constitution’.7The Times, 20 Apr. 1859. Anson’s active service in China meant he missed much of the 1860 session.8A. Anson, ‘To the electors of the city of Lichfield, 7 Jan. 1860, Lichfield Record Office, Hinckley papers, D15/4/12. Aside from a brief contribution to the debate on the army estimates, 18 Apr. 1861, Anson did little of note in the chamber, the division lobby, or the committee room prior to 1865.9Hansard, 18 Apr. 1861, vol. 162, c. 756. In that year he made his first major speech on the defence of Canada, which displayed the hard-headed, forceful logic which would characterise his later contributions to military and naval debates. Anson maintained that given the limits on Britain’s manpower and financial resources, it was not feasible to defend Canada’s extensive border with the United States, who also possessed superior firepower. Britain could offer maritime protection to Canada but no more, and the colony should assume responsibility for its own defence.10Hansard, 23 Mar. 1865, vol. 178, cc. 116-18. See also Hansard, 6 Apr. 1865, vol. 178, cc. 832-4.

Anson was re-elected in first place at the 1865 general election. The following year, he formed part of the Adullamite Whig faction led by Earl Grosvenor, supported from the Lords by his brother, who had become the 2nd earl of Lichfield in 1854.11Cowling, 1867, 9, 305; F.B. Smith, The making of the second reform bill (1966), 182. Anson backed his chief’s successful amendment to force the government to introduce a redistribution scheme to accompany the franchise bill, 27 Apr. 1866. However, Anson was damning about the grouped borough scheme hastily concocted by Russell and Gladstone, and on 28 May 1866, he declared that he ‘had been unable to discover any principle, sound or unsound’ behind the bill.12Hansard, 28 May 1866, vol. 183, c. 1361. He opposed a uniform lowering of the franchise, believing that household suffrage or a £7 franchise might be suitable for some boroughs, but it would be a ‘great mistake’ in a ‘great many’ other constituencies, perhaps even ‘a majority of them’.13Ibid., 1361-2. A much lower franchise would ‘swamp … the great shipping, commercial, and manufacturing interests’ of towns such as Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester.14Ibid., 1363. Although he had no objection to Lichfield being reduced to one member, Anson also criticised the anomalous treatment of small boroughs.15Ibid., 1364-5.

After the defeat of the reform bill and resignation of the Liberal government in June 1866, Anson apparently concurred with the overtures Grosvenor threw out to Lord Derby about a possible Adullamite-Conservative coalition, under a Whig peer such as Clarendon.16Cowling, 1867, 108. Anson declined the position of treasurer to the household offered to him by Derby in January 1867, but added ‘when the proper time arrives for that rapprochement between the moderate Liberals and moderate Conservatives, so earnestly to be desired, it must, to be of any use, begin with the leaders rather than the rank and file’, with Anson considering himself to be in the latter category.17Augustus Anson to Lord Derby, 28 Jan. 1867, Derby MSS, Box 110/2, Liverpool Record Office, qu. in Cowling, 1867, 209, 418. However, Anson told Gladstone’s go-between with the Adullamites, Francis Lawley, 10 Feb. 1867, that there was ‘but one prevailing feeling in every Adullamite heart – we are all Liberals and we all yearn for Mr. Gladstone as our leader’. He had ‘nothing but respect & affection’ for Gladstone, but could ‘not stomach either Lord Russell or Bright’.18Francis Lawley to William Ewart Gladstone, 10 Feb. 1867, Add. 44412, qu. in Cowling, 1867, 186. Even so, he warned Gladstone, through Lawley, not to reject the Conservatives’ reform proposals out of hand.19Sheppard, ‘The cave of Adullam and the Second Reform Act’, 153. Throughout 1867 Anson was one of the five Adullamites who voted ‘consistently with the [Conservative] government in major divisions throughout the session’, especially on the reform bill, opposing the enfranchisement of compound ratepayers, the reduction of residency qualifications and the disenfranchisement of small boroughs. 20Cowling, 1867, 208.

The expectations that the Adullamites might form a third party or coalition with the Conservatives came to nothing, and Anson, like the others, returned to the Liberal fold after the passing of the Representation of the People Act in 1867. (The Adullamite tendencies of Anson and his brother did, however, prove to be a harbinger of the family’s future Liberal Unionism). Thereafter Anson became preoccupied with military issues. Having found his voice in the House, Anson had successfully proposed a select committee in 1867 to consider the redeployment of native Indian soldiers to other parts of the empire to ease imperial overstretch.21Hansard, 26 Feb. 1867, vol. 185, cc. 1032-41. However, the majority of the committee, against Anson’s opposition, decided against ‘any considerable change in the proposed direction’, not least on grounds of the cost, but did consent to try some redeployment of troops as an experiment.22PP 1867-8 (197), vi. 790-6 (at 795). A second area of concern was weaponry. Rather than voting through ever larger estimates, Anson argued that Britain should try and get the best of existing stocks of ‘ships, guns, or stores’, and proposed, 13 Aug. 1867, converting existing 68-pounders into rifled guns, only to withdraw his motion.23Hansard, 13 Aug. 1867, vol. 189, cc. 1498-1503, 1509. See also ibid., 29 Nov. 1867, vol. 190, cc. 428-9. Anson also pressed for an annual statement of the quantity, value, location and usage of arms and stock, to reduce wastage, 6 July 1868.24Hansard, 6 July 1868, vol. 193, cc. 761-71, 779, 781. He again withdrew his motion, but secured a select committee on the royal gun factories (government arms manufactories), which, he argued undercut private competitors by winning public contracts through artificially low estimates.25Ibid., 765-6; ibid., 9, 16 July 1868, vol. 193, cc. 959, 961-2, 1254-61. He also wanted government factories to be treated like individual firms for accounting purposes so it would be possible to compare costs with private companies.26Hansard, 6 July 1868, vol. 193, cc. 768-70. The committee noted a discrepancy between the estimates and the eventual cost, but cleared the royal gun factories of any improper behaviour.27PP 1867-8 (459), vi. 824. However, another inquiry, of which Anson was also a member, recommended that all naval dockyards be treated as separate establishments.28PP 1867-68 (469), vi. 3-5.

At the 1868 general election, Anson was defeated at Lichfield, now reduced to one member, by his erstwhile Conservative colleague. He was again defeated at Bewdley at a by-election the following year, but seated on petition.29McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 23. However, a ruptured lung, ‘the consequence of a long-neglected cold’, forced Anson to retire at the 1874 general election.30The Times, 22 Nov. 1877. Although he was now an invalid, who had to spend ‘each winter in the South of France’ for his health, Anson continued to write letters to the Times on army questions until his premature death at the age of forty-two in 1877.31Ibid. Anson left no heirs, but was survived by his widow, Amelia (d. 1894), who, in 1881 married George Douglas Campbell (1823-1900), 8th duke of Argyll and a Cabinet minister in Gladstone’s first two administrations.32Burke’s peerage (1949), 1221-2; George Douglas, 8th duke of Argyll, 1823–1900: autobiography and memoirs, ed. I. E. Campbell, 2 vols. (1906), ii. 382-3, 468-9; H. C. G. Matthew, ‘Campbell, George Douglas, eighth duke of Argyll in the peerage of Scotland, and first duke of Argyll in the peerage of the United Kingdom (1823–1900)’, www.oxforddnb.com.