FARRER, James (1812-1879), of 14 Queen Street, Mayfair, London and Clapham Lodge, Ingleborough, Yorks.

Farrer, who described himself as ‘a plain country gentleman’, was born at Ingleborough, Yorkshire, the first son of James William Farrer, lord of the manors of Newby and Clapham on the extensive Ingleborough estate, and a master in Chancery.1Northern Echo, 19 June 1879. Through his mother’s first marriage, Farrer was half-brother of the second earl of Eldon, owner of 15,000 acres in the crucial Auckland and Hartlepool areas of the Durham South constituency.2T.J. Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms in reformed England: case studies from the North-east, 1832-74 (1975), 66. Following in his father’s footsteps, Farrer was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1832 and called to the bar five years later, but he never practised.

At the 1841 general election Farrer offered in the Conservative interest for Durham South. He was brought forward by Lord Londonderry, acting on behalf of the second earl of Eldon, who was still a minor. In ‘a racy and homely’ style, he advocated agricultural protection, but was attacked as an outsider, and following a bitter campaign, defeated in third place.3Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 66-7; Northern Echo, 19 June 1879; Newcastle Courant, 9 July 1841. At the 1847 general election, however, the Liberals offered only one candidate, and after declaring to the county’s farmers that there was no use in attempting to return to protection, he was elected unopposed, becoming the first Conservative to sit for the constituency.4Northern Echo, 19 June 1879.

A steady attender in his first parliament, Farrer divided with the Conservative opposition on most major issues, backing Disraeli’s stance on the agricultural interest, and voting for his motions to relieve the burdens on agriculture, 15 May 1849, and the distress of landowners, 13 Feb. 1851.5Farrer was present for 74 out of 219 divisions in 1849: Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849. He was also against the repeal of the navigation laws, 23 Apr. 1849. A ‘sworn defender’ of the established church, his handful of spoken interventions during Lord John Russell’s first administration reflected his anxiety over the extension of religious liberties.6Northern Echo, 19 June 1879. He voted against the Roman Catholic relief bill, believing that ‘further concessions’ would ‘prove prejudicial to the interests of all classes’, 8 Dec. 1847, and opposed the removal of Jewish disabilities, 17 Dec. 1847. He also intervened to praise Russell’s ecclesiastical titles assumption bill, stating that ‘although it might fall short of some points that might be desirable by warmhearted Protestants’, the measure would ‘be effectual in repressing the measures which had created so much alarm’, 4 July 1851. He consistently opposed the Maynooth grant and church rate abolition.

At the 1852 general election Farrer was re-elected without opposition. His attendance now in decline, he was in the ministerial minority for Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1852, and in a rare contribution, he pressed for a second reading of the Hartlepool pier and port bill, calling for the port, which was home to his strongest constituency support, to be made a harbour of refuge, 20 Mar. 1855.7Farrer was present for 49 out of 257 divisions in 1853, and for 45 out of 198 in 1856: Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions of the House of Commons during the last session of Parliament (1857), 6. He voted for Disraeli’s motion condemning the Crimean War, 25 May 1855, but was absent from Roebuck’s censure of the cabinet, 19 July 1855. Although he opposed the British navy’s actions in Canton, he abstained from Richard Cobden’s crucial division on the matter, 3 Mar. 1857. Explaining his absence to his constituents, he insisted that the nation owed Palmerston a debt of gratitude for his handling of the Crimean War, and therefore he ‘would not and will not endeavour to turn out any man so long as he does his duty’.8Northern Echo, 19 June 1879. This perceived inability to ‘reconcile his party allegiance with his conscientious convictions’, however, displeased his supporters in Durham South, and at the 1857 general election he was defeated by two Liberal candidates.9Ibid.; Leeds Mercury, 2 Apr. 1857.

At the 1859 general election, following the duke of Cleveland’s instructions to his tenants to plump for Farrer in the event of a contest, Lord Harry Vane, the sitting Liberal and younger brother of Cleveland, retired, leaving Farrer to be returned without opposition.10Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 52-3. He followed Disraeli into the division lobby on most major issues, and voted against the county franchise bill, 13 Mar. 1861, and the borough franchise bill, 11 May 1864. A staunch defender of the paper duties and opponent of higher tea and sugar duties, he criticised Gladstone’s 1861 budget, declaring that the chancellor of the exchequer was ‘in the position of the high-bred generous highwayman of old time, who having robbed his victim of all his property, said “in consideration of the inclemency of the weather, I will give you back your coat”’, 25 Apr. 1861. In a heated exchange, Farrer also intervened to defend the propriety of Ralph Ward Jackson, the Conservative-supporting industrialist and chairman of the West Hartlepool railway and dock company, who had been accused of purposely exceeding his government borrowing power, 25 Mar 1862. Having questioned the motives of Jackson’s accuser, Farrer was attacked by a letter in the press for ‘promulgating ... a deliberate lie’, and, in response, made an impassioned defence of his position, 1 Apr. 1862. The allegations against Jackson, however, were subsequently proved, causing Farrer, who was criticised in the Commons by Roebuck for his role in the affair, much embarrassment.11Hansard, 17 Apr. 1863, vol. 170, cc. 302-4.

At the 1865 general election Farrer retired from Parliament, having lost the support of the leaders of the local Conservative party, who were dismayed by his parliamentary performance.12Northern Echo, 19 June 1879. Although he was remembered as ‘no profound politician, and no statesman of genius’, he claimed in 1857 to serve ‘no interest but the interest and welfare of my constituents’. 13Ibid. Following his retirement from public life, he devoted himself to investigating archaeological sites in Orkney, and in his final years ‘secluded himself’ at the family seat of Clapham Lodge on the Ingleborough estate.14Northern Echo, 18 June 1879; Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 135 (2005), 165. He never married and died without issue at Clapham Lodge in June 1879.15Northern Echo, 19 June 1879. He left estate valued at £25,000.16England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, Index of wills and administration, 1861-1941, 19 July 1879. A selection of Farrer’s correspondence with fellow Conservatives during Derby’s first administration is located at the British Library, London.17Hardwicke papers, BL Add. MSS. 35788-35804.