PACKE, Charles William (1792-1867), of Prestwold Hall, nr. Loughborough, Leics.

A ‘thorough-going Tory’, Packe, a landowner and farmer, was an active county member who supported protectionism, paternalism and the established Church during a thirty year parliamentary career.1Leicester Chronicle, 2 Nov. 1867. His family traced their lineage to the London merchant Sir Christopher Packe, Lord Mayor 1654-55, and a ‘zealous parliamentarian’, who settled at Prestwold, Leicestershire.2Burke’s landed gentry (1847), ii. 989; The assembled Commons (1837), 135: Leicester Chronicle, 2 Nov. 1867. Packe succeeded his father in his youth and broke with his family’s traditional Whig principles.3Leicester Chronicle, 2 Nov. 1867.

Packe was returned without opposition at a by-election, 18 Feb. 1836, for South Leicestershire, a constituency firmly under Conservative control.4Examiner, 21 Feb. 1836. In the session of the same year, Packe attended less than a quarter of all divisions, but cast votes against reform of the Irish church, 21 Apr. 1836, and in favour of the strict enforcement of Sabbath observance, 3 June 1836.5An Atlas of the divisions of the House of Commons (1836, unpaginated). He was returned unopposed at the general election the following year.6Morn. Chro., 5 Aug. 1837. At this time, Packe was a terse public speaker who was notably less assiduous than his colleague, Henry Halford, in attending and addressing local Conservative meetings.7Derby Mercury, 15 Nov. 1837, 2 May 1838. Although he is not known to have spoken in the House in this period, Packe’s voting record indicated protectionist and paternalist sympathies, although he approved of the poor law whilst favouring some diminution of the Commission’s powers.

At the 1841 general election, Packe was returned in second place in a Conservative victory over the Liberals, and he faced no further opposition.8The Times, 14 July 1841; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (1972, 8th edn.), 167. The following year he supported Peel’s revision of the corn laws, 9 Mar. 1842, and the re-introduction of income tax, 22 Apr. 1842, whilst continuing to oppose free trade, 7, 11 July 1842. Packe divided in favour of the ten hour day for factories, 22 Mar. 1844, but opposed the Maynooth college bill at every stage, 3, 18 Apr., 21 May 1845. Peel’s public conversion to free trade in late 1845 marked a watershed for Packe, who thereafter became an active and vocal parliamentarian. Unconvinced by the premier’s justification for the change of policy, Packe argued that Conservatism ‘meant fixed principles’.9Hansard, 24 Feb. 1846, 23 Mar. 1846, vol. 84, cc. 40-44 (at 40), 1456-58. Whatever free traders argued, without protection farmers and labourers would be ‘irretrievably ruined’.10Hansard, 4 Feb. 1850, vol. 108, c. 286. So while Packe supported Disraeli’s efforts to reduce the burden on land (although he opposed the repeal of malt duty), he always maintained that protection, for agriculture and industry, was desirable and necessary.11Hansard, 8 May 1851, vol. 116, cc. 692-93; Morn. Chro., 16 July 1852.

Packe supported Halford’s attempts to ameliorate the condition of Leicestershire’s hosiery workers by abolishing the frame rent, promising that ‘so long as he had a seat in that House he would never allow a year to pass without endeavouring to abolish it’.12Hansard, 13 May 1847, vol. 92, c. 792; ibid., 9 June 1847, vol. 93, cc. 266-67 ( at 267); ibid., 29 Mar. 1848, vol. 97, c. 1112. Drawing on his considerable experience as a magistrate, he contributed to debates on the legal relationship between landlord and tenant, county rates, and crime and punishment.13Hansard, 5 June 1846, 16, 23 July 1846, vol. 87, cc. 71-72, 1208, 1389; ibid., 28 Apr. 1847, vol. 92, cc. 45-46; ibid., 14 Mar. 1849, vol. 103, c. 691; ibid., 16 May 1849, vol. 105, c. 580; ibid., 20 Feb. 1850, vol. 108, cc. 1133-34; ibid., 13, 20 Mar. 1850, vol. 109, cc. 824-25, 1204; ibid., 18 Apr. 1850, 1 May 1850, vol. 110, cc. 507-08, 523, 1063; ibid., 12 Mar. 1851, vol. 114, c. 1293; ibid., 19 Mar. 1851, vol. 115, c. 209; ibid., 14 May 1851, vol. 116, c. 947; ibid., 3 June 1852, vol. 121, c. 1409. In 1848, he introduced a bill to delay the Epiphany quarter sessions by a week (for the convenience of magistrates, jurors and witnesses), but withdrew it after criticism that it was a solution to a problem which did not exist.14Hansard, 9 Feb. 1848, vol. 96, cc. 327-28.

The Times sarcastically remarked of Packe’s protectionist speech on the address, 4 Feb. 1850, that: ‘He acted the part of a tenant-farmer so perfectly that his nearest friends could hardly have recognised under the home-spun and corduroys the wealthy country gentleman, a colonel of the yeomanry, and Member’.15The Times, 5 Feb. 1850. The comment contained a grain of truth, but Packe had good reasons for cultivating such an image, for he was acutely aware of the dissatisfaction of local farmers towards their social betters and political representatives.16Daily News, 21 Oct. 1851; Morn. Chro., 16 July 1852. Whilst Conservative leaders gradually moved away from protectionism, Packe told farmers in 1851 that he remained committed to ‘the whole hog’, a message he reiterated at the general election the following year, when he was again returned unopposed.17Daily News, 21 Oct. 1851; Morn. Chro., 16 July 1852. After a family quarrel in the early 1850s, Packe quit Prestwold, thereafter dividing his time between Great Glen, his other Leicestershire seat, and Branksome Tower, Dorset.18J. Cross, Prestwold Hall to Branksome Tower: C.W. Packe, 1792-1867 (1993), 9-10.

Packe was a member of the 1854 select committee on public houses, but disowned its recommendations, which included restricting Sunday opening hours, as necessary only for London, not the countryside.19PP 1852-53 (855), xxxvii. 2; 1854 (367), xiv. 232, 239; Hansard, 10 June 1857, vol. 145, c. 1517. He remained characteristically robust in his support of the ultimately unsuccessful attempts to regulate the hosiery trade, bluntly telling political economists in the House that ‘the plain simple fact was, that capitalists were too powerful for the artisans, … [who] must accept their terms or starve’.20Hansard, 8 Mar. 1855, vol. 137, cc. 253-54; see also ibid., 4 May 1853, vol. 126, cc. 1093-94; ibid., 15, 22 Mar. 1854, vol. 131, cc. 838-39, 1223; PP 1854-55 (421), xiv. 5. He opposed attempts to reduce county elections to one day’s polling, contending that it would disenfranchise rural electors.21Hansard, 1 Dec. 1852, vol. 123, cc. 807, 813. Packe favoured giving county ratepayers greater control over expenditure and also argued that towns should make a greater contribution to supporting manufacturing operatives who claimed poor relief.22Hansard, 23 Feb. 1853, vol. 124, cc. 484-85; ibid., 16 Mar. 1853, vol. 125, cc. 261, 271; ibid., 10 Feb. 1854, vol. 130, cc. 464-65.

In 1854, Packe proposed that Dissenters be partially relieved from church rates, but his bill was reluctantly withdrawn after receiving little support.23Packe proposed to relieve Dissenters from contributing to the maintenance of church services, but they would still be liable to pay towards the upkeep of church buildings if a rate was levied. Hansard, 9 May 1854, vol. 133, c. 88; ibid., 14 June 1854, vol. 134, cc. 139-40; J. Ellens, Religious routes to Gladstonian liberalism: the church rate conflict in England and Wales, 1832-1868 (1994), 120. Although he agreed with Dissenters that the issue needed to be settled, Packe maintained that the Church was a national institution with a duty to all, not simply a ‘mere sect’, adding that much of the opposition to the rate stemmed from ‘pocket considerations’ rather than principle.24Hansard, 23 May 1854, vol. 133, cc. 818-20 (at 820); ibid., 21 June 1854, vol. 134, cc. 456-58; ibid., 16 May 1855, vol. 138, cc. 673-77 (at 673). He introduced a modified bill in 1856, which he later withdrew.25The bill proposed abolishing the rate for church services, and making property owners rather than occupiers liable for the rate for maintaining the fabric of the church. It was assumed that this would relieve the vast majority of Dissenters, but the measure would have been unworkable in large towns such as Leicester, where any rate was unacceptable and, in any case, could no longer be imposed, as abolitionists controlled the select vestry. Hansard, 5 Feb. 1856, vol. 140, cc. 253-58; ibid., 21 May 1856, vol. 142, cc. 467-76; Ellens, Religious routes, 130-31.

After being returned unopposed at the 1857 general election, when he expressed ‘his opposition to Lord Palmerston’s domestic and foreign policy in general’, Packe continued to resist the church rate abolition bills of Sir John Trelawny, who noted that his adversary ‘twaddled lugubriously amidst a well-sustained din’.26The Times, 31 Mar. 1857; Hansard, 21 Apr. 1858, vol. 149, cc. 1424-28; ibid., 8 June 1850, vol. 150, cc. 1708-09; ibid., 15 Mar. 1859, vol. 153, cc. 191-92; The parliamentary diaries of Sir John Trelawny, 1858-1865, ed. T. Jenkins, Camden Society, 4th series, xl, (1990), 72 (15 Mar. 1859). Packe served on the inquiry into female and juvenile employment in bleaching and dyeing works, which rejected legislative intervention, although he was in favour.27PP 1857 session 2 (151), xi. 2; 1857 session 2 (211), xi. 261; 1857-58 (270), xi. 687, 690. In the debate on the Conservative reform bill, 25 Mar. 1859, Packe expressed astonishment at Bright’s ‘arrogance’ and his reputation as the ‘champion of working classes’, given his persistent opposition to measures aimed at improving their lot, such as factory legislation.28Hansard, 25 Mar. 1859, vol. 153, cc. 854-56 (at 854).

Packe was returned without opposition at the 1859 general election, but thereafter his activity waned, although he was re-elected in 1865, despite rumours that he would retire.29McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, 167; Birmingham Daily Post, 17 July 1865. He also intervened in the election for the northern division, speaking against the independent Charles Hay Frewen, MP for West Sussex 1846-57, who jeered that Packe had ‘shut up the old family place in the county … all to spite the next heir’.30Leicester Chronicle, 22 July 1865. A life-size portrait of Packe was commissioned in 1864, to mark his thirty years as chairman of Leicestershire quarter sessions.31Cross, Prestwold Hall, 6-7. Packe reiterated his support for protection to a local audience in early 1867, and died later that year, after suffering from dropsy.32Farmer’s Magazine (1867), vi. 164; Gent. Mag. (1867), ii. 829; The Times, 28 Oct. 1867. A local Liberal newspaper, which condemned his ‘narrow, unprogressive, reactionary’ political opinions, nevertheless conceded that Packe was ‘shrewd and sagacious’ and possessed ‘some of the best qualities of an English country gentleman’.33Leicester Chronicle, 2 Nov. 1867. He was succeeded by his brother, George Hussey Packe (1796-1874), Liberal MP for South Lincolnshire, 1859-1868, but his widow retained a life interest in their Dorset estate.34Burke’s landed gentry (1907), 1275-6; Cross, Prestwold Hall, 17. Packe’s body was interred at Kensal Rise cemetery until the Branksome mausoleum was completed in 1871, but by this time his widow had died and his nephew had sold the estate.35Packe intended the mausoleum, the building of which was delayed by legal problems, to be the resting place of his successors at Branksome. The family retained ownership of the mausoleum until 1991. Ibid., 17-20.