FARNHAM, Edward Basil (1799-1879), of Quorndon House, nr. Loughborough, Leicestershire

A silent and inactive Conservative squire, Farnham was unfavourably compared to a log of wood at one election nomination.1The Times, 15 July 1852. His ancestors had possessed land in Quorndon, Leicestershire since the reign of Edward I, and the two branches of the family, residing at Upper and Nether Hall, had been united on the succession of Farnham’s grandfather Edward (1704-75). His father was high sheriff of Leicestershire in 1817, and replaced Nether Hall with a new seat, Quorndon Hall, in the early nineteenth century, which was described as ‘a secluded and picturesquely-situated mansion’.2Sir B. Burke, A visitation of the seats and arms of the noblemen and gentlemen of Great Britain (1852), i. 58; Dod’s parliamentary companion (1838), 108; Burke’s landed gentry (1847), i. 398. In 1837 Farnham challenged the Whig incumbent, and was returned unopposed alongside another Conservative for North Leicestershire at the general election.3Derby Mercury, 15 Feb. 1837; The Times, 27 June 1837, 19 July 1837. Stressing his local connections, Farnham promised to uphold the ‘Union of Church and State’.4Morn. Chro., 7 July 1837.

In Parliament, Farnham, who is not known to have ever spoken in debate, supported the new poor law, albeit with some clipping of the Commission’s powers, agricultural protection and opposed financial support to the Catholic seminary at Maynooth. He repeatedly cast votes in favour of the immediate abolition of slave apprenticeships, 30 Mar. 1838, 22, 28 May 1838. Farnham was more expansive at local party meetings, which he regularly attended. A direct, if rather limited, public speaker, he frequently lambasted the Whigs’ ‘feeble administration’, which clung on to office by giving ‘concession upon concession’ to Daniel O’Connell’s Irish party.5Derby Mercury, 15 Nov. 1837, 30 Jan. 1839. He did, however, describe Lord John Russell as ‘the best and most honest man’ in the cabinet.6Derby Mercury, 15 Jan. 1840. At the 1841 general election, when he was returned without a contest despite a token opposition, Farnham dismissed the government’s cry of ‘cheap bread’ as ‘contemptible clap-trap’, but endorsed Chartist demands for ‘A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work’.7The Times, 7 July 1841.

Protectionism, paternalism and Protestantism proved to be the guiding themes of Farnham’s political career over the next six years. He became increasingly hostile to the new poor law, and was a general supporter of factory legislation, including measures to regulate the East Midlands hosiery and lace industries, 20 May 1846, 9 June 1847. Although he supported Peel’s revised corn law of 1842, Farnham later repudiated his leader, who, he told local agriculturalists, ‘had in the hour of their greatest need deserted their interests’ by converting to free trade, which would also lower wages.8The Times, 13 Jan. 1846. Farnham’s commitment to the established Church was shown by his support for church rates, but above all by his resistance to the Maynooth college bill, which he opposed at every stage, 3, 18 April 1845, 21 May 1845.

At the 1847 general election, when he was again returned without opposition, Farnham expressed sympathy with Conservative distrust of the party leadership after Peel’s apostasy, but nonetheless expressed support for the protectionist chiefs, Lord Stanley and Lord George Bentinck.9The Times, 4 Aug. 1847. He opposed political reform and further instalments of free trade, such as the repeal of the navigation laws, 12 Mar. 1849, and endorsed Disraeli’s efforts to relieve agriculture, 15 Mar. 1849, 13 Feb. 1851, while his support for Protestant institutions was undiminished.

Although he was returned unopposed at the 1852 general election, the nomination was an uncomfortable experience for Farnham, who spoke against the malt tax. Jeered by the crowd at Loughborough, his parliamentary performance was derided by a Liberal speaker, who complained that Farnham had sat for fifteen years ‘without even once making a speech, or without having gained one particle of influence’. He added sarcastically that a better representative would be a log of wood, sent to ‘Lord Derby, “To be used as occasion may require”.’10The Times, 15 July 1852.

Whilst out riding in February 1853, a stone bridge collapsed on Farnham, breaking his horse’s back, although he escaped unscathed.11Derby Mercury, 16 Feb. 1853. In the session of the same year Farnham attended less than a fifth of divisions, but in 1856, he voted in a third.12Although there were fewer divisions in the latter year: Farnham voted in 50 out of 257 divisions in 1852-3 session, and 66/198 in 1856: Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J. Gassiott, A third letter to J.A. Roebuck (1857), 11. He gave staunch support to the anti-Maynooth motions, 23 Feb. 1853, 15 Apr. 1856, and also to Henry Halford’s efforts to ameliorate the condition of Leicestershire’s framework-knitters, 4 May 1853.

Despite being pelted with a variety of missiles at the nomination, Farnham was elected in second place at the 1857 general election, ahead of the independent Conservative and ultra-Protestant, Charles Hay Frewen, the former MP for East Sussex.13Derby Mercury, 8 Apr. 1857. During the campaign Farnham reiterated his opposition to Maynooth and to Palmerston’s foreign policy, whilst advocating the abolition of income tax, but indicated that he was not against the abolition of church rates, provided that an alternative source of revenue could be found.14Derby Mercury, 25 Mar. 1857; The Times, 1 Apr. 1857.

Farnham did little of note in the remainder of his time in the Commons before retiring at the 1859 general election, citing ill-health.15Morn. Chro., 5, 11 Apr. 1859; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 10 Apr. 1859. He served as high sheriff in 1870 and died in 1879, leaving a personal estate sworn under £180,000.16F. Boase, Modern English Biography (1892), i. 1022; The Times, 19 July 1879. Farnham, who had married in middle age, was succeeded by his eldest surviving son William Edward John Basil Farnham (1855-1910).17Burke’s landed gentry (1886), i. 612-13; ibid., (1952), 812. Although listed as the first born in Burke’s, Farnham’s heir had been predeceased by William Edward Basil (d. 1854): Gent. Mag. (1854), ii. 205.