WISE, Henry Christopher (1806-1883), of Woodcote, Warws.

A Conservative squire, Wise continued the tradition of undistinguished and silent parliamentary service which was the hallmark of South Warwickshire’s representatives between the first two Reform Acts.1For contemporary complaints of the poor performance and indolence of the constituency’s MPs see Birmingham Daily Post, 26 Apr. 1865, 31 May 1865, 20 July 1865. Wise’s ancestor Henry Wise, a ranger of Hyde Park and superintendent of the royal garden at Hampton Court, had purchased the estate at Warwick Priory during the reign of Queen Anne.2Burke’s landed gentry (1886), ii. 2019. Wise’s grandfather and namesake (1738-1805) had been high sheriff of Warwickshire and on the death of his older brother in 1810, Wise’s clergyman father inherited the estate.3Burke’s landed gentry (1847), ii. 1618-19. Although Wise did not succeed his father until 1850, it seems that well before then he was generally described and treated as a landowner. As the estate lay to the north of Warwick, Wise often proposed Conservative candidates for the borough as well as the southern division.4D. Paterson, ‘Tory political influence in mid-nineteenth century Warwick’, Warwickshire History, 3 (1977-8), 197-207 (at 201). He nominated one of the Conservative candidates for South Warwickshire at the 1841 general election: Morning Post, 6 July 1841. His role at the nomination for the 1837 by-election proved to be a handicap, however, as when the Conservative candidate sought to make political capital out of the poor law, his opponent pointed out that Wise chaired the local board of guardians.5Joseph Parkes to Edward John Stanley, 27 Mar. 1837, MS Kingsland; The Times, 20, 21, 29 Mar. 1837.

It was later claimed, prior to Wise’s election, that he had often been solicited to stand for South Warwickshire in the past but that it had never suited his purposes to do so, and there were reasons for his reluctance to come forward.6Birmingham Daily Post, 19 July 1865. After his father’s death in 1850, Wise had sold off The Priory, which had been cut off from the estate by a railway line, and built a new home at Woodcote which was only completed in the early 1860s.7G. Tyack, Warwickshire country houses (1994), 210-12, 270-2. When the incumbent announced in May 1863 that he would retire at the dissolution, Wise was named by the local Conservative Association as his prospective replacement.8Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 16 May 1863. At the general election two years later Wise emphasised the paramount importance of repealing malt duty, whilst claiming that ‘there was no cry in the country for reform whatever’. However, he did offer some support for extending, though not lowering the franchise, and suggested that he favoured educational and savings bank qualifications.9Birmingham Daily Post, 20 May 1865. He later promised to ‘give his best consideration to any well-considered measure of reform’, but would oppose any ‘meddlesome meddling policy’ which would unsettle the fabric of the constitution.10Birmingham Daily Post, 19 July 1865.

After topping the poll, Wise took his place on the Conservative benches.11 The Times, 22 July 1865; Dod’s parliamentary companion (1865), 308. Despite his noisy opposition to the malt tax during his election campaign, Wise did not speak on the issue, nor on any other. Neither did Wise serve on the select committee on the malt tax in 1867 and 1868, nor, it seems, on any others. He opposed the abolition of church rates, the ballot and the Liberal government’s reform bill in 1866. The following year he generally resisted enfranchising and redistribution clauses during the committee stage of the representation of the people bill, but supported the minority clause, 8 Aug. 1867. Wise opposed Gladstone’s resolution on the Irish church, 3 Apr. 1868, and was re-elected at the general election in December of that year.

Wise retired at the 1874 general election and died in 1883. As his heir and namesake, an army officer, had been killed in a skirmish in Australia in 1854, Wise was succeeded by his second son George (1830-88), who was predeceased by his remaining brothers and died childless, after which the estates passed to his cousin Sir George Waller, an army officer.12Burke’s landed gentry (1886), ii. 2019; Tyack, Warwickshire country houses, 270-2.