COLVILE, Charles Robert (1816-1886), of Lullington Hall, nr. Burton-on-Trent, Derbys.

A Tory-Radical at the beginning of his political career, Colvile finished it as a Liberal with a few minor legislative achievements to his name, still possessed of the same vituperative speaking style which made him such a dangerous opponent. Descended from Norman origins, inherited debts forced his grandfather Robert (1763-99) to sell the ancient family seat of Newton Colvile, Cambridgeshire, in 1792.1Z. Colvile, History of the Colvile family (1897), 68; Burke’s landed gentry (1847), i. 248. Colvile’s father, Sir Charles (1789-1833), came into possession of Duffield Hall through his marriage to Harriet Anne Bonell, heiress to the Porter and Coape families, was high sheriff in 1831, and unsuccessfully contested Derby as a Tory the following year.2Colvile, Colvile family, 82-83. Following his mother’s death and his succession to her property in 1834, Colvile sold Duffield Hall, and in 1840 purchased an estate at Lullington, near Burton-on-Trent, from the Gresley family, where he lived in a wooden house until a new Hall was built.3Ibid., 86-87.

Colvile made his political debut as the second Conservative candidate in the 1837 general election at Derby, where he expressed his antipathy to the ‘oppressive character’ of the new poor law.4Derby Mercury, 19, 26 July 1837. He finished bottom of the poll, but was announced as the prospective candidate for South Derbyshire, 24 Apr. 1840, and became an indefatigable attender of local political dinners.5Ibid., 29 Apr. 1840, 10 June 1840, 21 Oct. 1840. At the 1841 election, which he later claimed cost him £8,000, he was returned in second place.6The expenditure claim is made in his public letter to John Balguy, dated 9 Feb. 1852, published in Ibid., 25 Feb. 1852. In his nomination speech, he demanded major changes to the poor law, principally the abolition of the commission.7Ibid., 14 July 1841.

For much of the next five years, Colvile was heavily involved in the largely successful struggle to preserve the autonomy of Gilbert’s Unions from the reach of the poor law commission. The campaign was fought through petitions, the division lobby, a deputation to the home secretary, Sir James Graham, public meetings, and by serving on the 1844 and 1845 select committees, the first of which he said was stacked with supporters of the poor law and ‘was so bad he was compelled to complain of it’.8House of Commons Divisions Lists, 1842 session, 17 Mar. 1842, 19 July 1842; ibid., 1844 session, 18 July 1844; Derby Mercury, 23 Mar. 1842, 11 May 1842; The Times, 9 June 1842, 6 Oct. 1842; PP 1844 (543), x. 2; PP 1845 (409), xiii. 2; Hansard, 10 June 1844, vol. 75, c.477; ibid., 22 July 1844, vol. 76, c.1256. The Tory-Radical shade of his politics was also illustrated by his support for factory legislation and his membership of the committee to free Richard Oastler from prison.9House of Commons Divisions Lists, 1844 session, 22 Mar. 1844; The Fleet Papers (1844), iv. 144. He favoured agricultural protection, but was prescient enough to warn local supporters to keep an eye on their government as well as free trade agitators.10House of Commons Divisions Lists, 1842 session, 16, 24 Feb. 1842; ibid., 1843 session, 12, 15 May 1843, 13 June 1843; ibid., 1844 session, 26 June 1844; ibid., 1845 session, 10 June 1845; ibid., 1846 session, 27 Mar. 1846; Derby Mercury, 31 Jan. 1844, 29 Jan. 1845. He was also a strong Protestant, who opposed any concessions to Catholics or dissenters.11House of Commons Divisions Lists, 1842 session, 20 July 1842; ibid., 1843 session, 8 Apr. 1843, 25 May 1843; ibid., 1844 session, 6 June 1844, 12 June 1844, 19 July 1844; ibid., 1845 session, 3, 18 Apr. 1845, 21 May 1845.

At the 1847 general election, he claimed credit for the mitigation of the ‘harsh and vexatious provisions’ of the poor law, and disavowed an immediate restoration of the corn laws.12Derby Mercury, 21 July 1847. After his unopposed return, Colvile focused on rural issues, serving on the inquiry into agricultural customs in 1848.13PP 1847-48 (461), vii. 2. That session he piloted a bill onto the statute book, which enabled tenants to kill hares without a game certificate from landowners, which was deemed as a ‘very reasonable measure’ by Sir George Grey.1411 & 12 Vict. c.29, c.30 (for Scotland); PP 1847-48 (126), ii. 469-72; 1847-48 (285) ii. 473-76; Hansard, 24 Feb. 1848, vol. 96, cc. 1301-02 (qu. at 1301); ibid., 8 Mar. 1848, vol. 97, cc. 328-31; ibid., 7 June 1848, vol. 99, cc. 471-75. Thereafter his attendance dropped as he spent more time on board his yacht, the Circassian, around Europe. According to a family history, he was almost shot in Sicily after he and a friend were mistaken for Swiss spies, and in 1849 he was chased and fired at by the Spanish coast guard, after which he sold the boat.15Colvile, Colvile family, 87. When present, he opposed Jewish emancipation, but supported further factory legislation and the removal of burdens on agriculture.16House of Commons Divisions Lists, 1847-48 session, 17 Dec. 1847, 11 Feb. 1848, 4 May 1848; ibid., 1850 session, 1, 21 Feb. 1850, 6 June 1850; ibid., 1851 session, 13 Feb. 1851, 11 Apr. 1851, 1, 8 May 1851, 17 June 1851. Although he attended a meeting of protectionist MPs in April 1851, a hint of his future politics was given by his support for the Whig government’s foreign policy in June 1850.17Morn. Chro., 3 Apr. 1851; House of Commons Divisions Lists, 1850 session, 28 June 1850.

Before the 1852 general election, local Conservatives, dissatisfied with Colvile’s attendance record, his lukewarm support for repeal of malt duty, and his unsteady voting, attempted to force his retirement, but were outmanoeuvred as he presented himself as an independent representative refusing to be cowed by a shadowy clique.18Derby Mercury, 25 Feb. 1852. Colvile was returned unopposed with the Conservative loyalist, William Mundy, but despite his break with the local party, he continued to oppose concessions to Dissenters, Catholics, and Jews, and political reforms.19House of Commons Divisions Lists, 1852 session, 23 Mar. 1852; ibid., 1852-53 session, 11 Mar. 1853, 15 Apr. 1853, 26 May 1853; ibid., 1854 session, 23, 25 May 1854, 13, 21 June 1854; ibid., 1854-55 session, 16, 22 May 1855; ibid., 1856 session, 5 Mar. 1856, 20 May 1856; ibid., 1857 session 1, 19 Feb. 1857. His attendance was lax for much of the 1850s, and his habit of pairing off at the end of the session, particularly to go cruising in his yacht Fidelio, purchased in 1858, on one occasion gave currency to false reports of his death.20Colvile, Colvile family, 89; Derby Mercury, 11 Aug. 1858. In the 1853 session, he voted in 39 out of 257 divisions; in the 1854 session he voted in 44 out of 240 divisions; and in the 1856 session he voted in 65 out of 198 divisions: Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; Derby Mercury, 23 Aug. 1854; J. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck, with a full analysis of the divisions in the House of Commons during the last session of Parliament (1857), 4. He retained a presence in the constituency, however, through speeches to farmers and licensed victuallers, and he was one of the main opponents of the proposed rating of mines for poor law purposes, which was unpopular with Derbyshire’s extractive industries.21Derby Mercury, 27 Oct. 1852, 11, 18 Oct. 1853, 4 July 1855; Hansard, 24 Apr. 1856, vol. 141, c.1467. In 1856, Colvile sought to modify the qualifications for justices of the peace, but the large number of changes made to the bill led to accusations that it was ‘a bad one’, and it fell at the third reading.22The bill would have consolidated existing laws and its main feature would have allowed those with £300 in personal property or public servants with equivalent salaries, to qualify as justices, who at that time had to possess £100 per annum in land: PP 1856 (30), iv. 475-84; Hansard, 27 Feb. 1856, vol. 144, cc. 1438-44; ibid., 21 May 1856, vol. 142, cc. 476-81. The negative comment was made by Lord Lovaine, ibid., c.480.

In 1857, Colvile’s politics began to assume a more recognisably Liberal hue. He voted for the equalisation of the county and borough franchise, and, after pairing off against Cobden’s Canton motion, he sought re-election as a Liberal-Conservative supporter of Palmerston.23House of Commons Divisions Lists, 1857 session 1, 19 Feb. 1857; Derby Mercury, 11 Mar. 1857. He formed an alliance with the Liberal Thomas William Evans, who topped the poll, and, deploying his rhetorical firepower against the two young Conservative candidates, Colvile secured the second seat by over a thousand votes.24Derby Mercury, 18 Mar. 1857, 1, 8 Apr. 1857. His politics remained mercurial, however, and one local observer described him as ‘slippery as an eel’.25Ibid., 6 May 1858. He retired at the 1859 election, ostensibly for health reasons, but a characteristic dispute with the local Liberal party was another factor.26Ibid., 13 May 1859, 5 July 1865.

Colvile spent the next six years engaged in yeomanry activities, building a Masonic Hall in Derby, and a new church, All Saints, on his estate.27Colvile, Colvile family, 89; Derby Mercury, 24 Sept. 1862, 1 Oct. 1862. At the 1865 general election, Colvile waited before offering as a Liberal, fighting a campaign distinguished by his contemptuous attacks on his former colleague Mundy, whom he beat to the second seat by thirty-one votes.28Ibid., 5, 12, 19 July 1865. The undoubted highlight of Colvile’s last Parliament was his successful amendment to lower the copyhold franchise from £10 to £5, which he proposed because ‘the great fault’ of the 1867 reform bill ‘was, that, having lowered the borough franchise, it had not kept pace in the same direction with county franchise’.29The clause was struck out by the Lords, but Colvile successfully moved its re-insertion: Hansard, 20 May 1867, vol. 187, cc. 845-51; 29 July 1867, vol. 189, cc. 324-27; 8 Aug. 1867, vol. 189, cc. 1124-25 (qu. at 1124); 30 & 31 Vict. c. 102. Another amendment, to allow copyholders with property in boroughs the right to vote in the county, was defeated by 20 votes, despite Gladstone and Bright speaking in favour.30Hansard, 24 June 1867, vol. 188, cc. 457-60, 469-71. He dropped his 1866 clerks to justices bill after receiving an almost wholly negative response in the chamber.31Hansard, 9 May 1866, vol. 183, cc. 644-54; PP 1866 (53), ii. 1-4.

Colvile ‘gave up political life’ after his defeat in the 1868 general election, but, despite his declining health, was high sheriff of the county in 1875.32Colvile, Colvile family, 89. ‘Unreliable in his allegiance’ to the end, he backed the Conservatives in the 1885 general election.33Derby Mercury, 17 Mar. 1886. He died the following year, succeeded by his only child, the distinguished colonial general Sir Henry Colvile (1852-1907).34H. M. Vibart, ‘Colvile, Sir Henry Edward (1852–1907)’, rev. M. G. M. Jones, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 [http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/view/article/32513, accessed 8 July 2009]. The author of a pamphlet on agricultural improvement, he was instrumental in securing the Royal Agricultural Show for Derby in 1843.35C. Colvile, Impediments to agricultural improvement considered, in a paper read before the Burton-upon-Trent Farmers’ Club, on Thursday, September 23, 1847 (1848); Derby Mercury, 12, 19, 26 July 1843. He kept beagles, harriers, and also bred homing pigeons.36Colvile, Colvile family, 89.