ANSON, Thomas George (Viscount Anson) (1825-1892), of Shugborough, nr. Lichfield, Staffs.

Scion of the Whig Anson family, earls of Lichfield, Anson sat for a short time on his father’s interest before succeeding to the peerage. Anson was described on his election by the duke of Bedford as ‘the most promising of the young whig aristocracy’, but his Commons career was unremarkable.1Duke of Bedford to the earl of Lichfield, 14 Nov. 1847, Anson papers, Staffordshire Record Office, D615/P(P)/1/22. His father, Thomas William Anson (1795-1854), 2nd viscount Anson, who was created 1st earl of Lichfield in 1831, briefly sat for Great Yarmouth in 1818 and was the major electoral influence in Lichfield.2HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 75. The chronicler of Staffordshire parliamentary history (and later founder of the History of Parliament), Josiah Clement Wedgwood MP wrote in 1934: ‘in Staffordshire liberalism in general and Reform in particular owed more to Lord Anson than to any man’.3J.C. Wedgwood, Staffordshire parliamentary history, Collections for a history of Staffordshire (1934), iii. 74. The 1st earl was also a leading national politician. It was at his London residence, Lichfield House, in 1835 that an agreement was reached between Whigs, Reformers, Radicals and Irish MPs to turn out Peel’s minority government on the issue of Irish church appropriation and he served as postmaster-general in Melbourne’s second ministry.4A.H. Graham, ‘The Lichfield House compact, 1835’, Irish Historical Studies, 12 (1961), 209-25.

Anson was groomed for politics from an early age. He was too young to stand in the family interest for Lichfield when a vacancy arose in January 1846, but actively campaigned and canvassed for Edward Mostyn Lloyd Mostyn, previously Whig MP for Flintshire, who was elected as a stopgap.5Daily News, 28 Jan. 1846; The Times, 2 Feb. 1846. Anson served as a précis writer for Palmerston at the foreign office 1846-7, and at the general election in July of the latter year, by which time he had attained his majority, Mostyn resigned in favour of the nobleman, who was returned unopposed with another Whig.6The Times, 28 June 1847, 30 July 1847; F. Boase, Modern English biography (1897), ii. 423. In Parliament, Anson joined his uncle Colonel George Anson, MP for Great Yarmouth 1819-3, Stoke 1836-7, and South Staffordshire 1837-53 on the Liberal benches.7HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 73-4; ibid., 1820-1832, iv. 68-70. Anson does not appear to have spoken, or served on any committees. He gave general support to Russell’s administration, favouring the removal of Jewish disabilities and opposing radical political reform, but his votes on economic and financial policy followed a distinctive pattern. Anson supported the repeal of the navigation laws in 1849 and opposed the restoration of the corn laws in 1850, but clearly had some sympathy with agriculturalists as he backed Disraeli’s motions for agricultural relief, 15 Mar. 1849, and for relieving owners and occupiers of land, 13 Feb. 1851.

Given his votes with the protectionists, one newspaper commented that Anson had ‘strangely metamorphosed into a Derbyite’.8Morning Advertiser, qu. in Staffordshire Advertiser, 17 Apr. 1852. However, Anson did not countenance a return to agricultural protection but nonetheless favoured ‘a thorough readjustment of the taxation of the country’ to relieve agriculture.9Viscount Anson, ‘To the electors of the city of Lichfield’, 30 Mar. 1852, Lichfield Record Office, scrapbook, p. 11, D77/20/10. He topped the poll at the 1852 general election, when he denied that he was a protectionist. Nevertheless he said he would ‘not support any particular government, but such measures as in his judgement would be for the good of the country from which ever side of the House they may emanate’.10Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 July 1852. Anson was not hostile to parliamentary reform, but would oppose any measure which gave ‘encouragement to the wild theories of the ultra-democratic party’.11Viscount Anson, ‘To the electors of the city of Lichfield’, 30 Mar. 1852, Lichfield Record Office, scrapbook, p. 11, D77/20/10. However, Anson admitted that his ‘tendencies were in the same direction’ as his more radical Whig colleague Lord Alfred Paget.12Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 July 1852. Thereafter Anson opposed Villiers’ self-congratulatory free trade motion, 27 Nov. 1852, preferring Palmeston’s moderated version, and resisted Gladstone’s budget, 2 May 1853.

Anson succeeded his father as 2nd earl of Lichfield in March 1854, when his seat was assumed by his uncle, Henry Manners Cavendish, Lord Waterpark (1793-1863).13Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 25 Mar. 1854; Morn. Chro., 3 Apr. 1854. As electoral patron, Lichfield exercised his influence in favour of moderate principles. Seeking to fill a vacancy at the 1859 election, he discounted candidates he deemed too radical or likely to alienate local Conservatives.14Hatherton Journal, 15 Apr. 1859, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/5/26/81. He eventually decided upon his brother, Augustus Henry Archibald Anson (1835-75), and, advising him on his election address, wrote that:

Sandon [the previous MP] he tells me is a liberal-conservative. I thought it best to avoid both words and express general views to which no one can take exception and which will leave it open to him to support whoever brings in good measures without regard to their coming from liberal or cons. govts.15Earl of Lichfield to viscount Anson, 16 Apr. 1859, Anson papers, Staffs. RO, D616/P(P)/1/28. Although the letter was to his son, it was meant to be passed on to his brother.

Before the 1865 general election, Lichfield pointedly informed his former colleague and nominee Lord Alfred Paget, who supported extensive parliamentary reform and the ballot, that ‘you may be quite sure that as long as you support such people as Ld Palmerston we shall not disagree’.16Earl of Lichfield to Lord Alfred Paget, n.d. [1865], Anson papers, Staffs. RO, D615/P(P)/4/2/4. Paget was beaten by a Conservative, but Augustus Anson was re-elected and with his brother’s support from the Lords, became one of the leading ‘Adullamites’, the dissentient Liberals who brought down Earl Russell’s government over the reform question in 1866.17M. Cowling, 1867: Disraeli, Gladstone and revolution (1967), 208-9, 305. Lichfield was reduced to one member in 1868, and Lichfield’s brother was defeated by a Conservative, although he later sat for Bewdley 1869-74. As the expansion of the electorate after 1868 rendered the burgage tenures, through which the Anson family had traditionally controlled the representation, electorally worthless, the 2nd earl began selling them off in the 1880s.18VCH Staffs., xiv. 92-5. Lichfield spoke occasionally in the Lords, mostly on social and moral questions, where his interest lay, and he was the first chairman of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders and established a reformatory at Saltley.19Boase, Modern English biography, i. 423; The Times, 8 Jan. 1892. He served as lord lieutenant of Staffordshire 1863-71 and high steward of Stafford in 1878.20Boase, Modern English biography, i. 423. He died in January 1892, three weeks after suffering a ‘severe paralytic stroke’ and was succeeded as 4th earl by his eldest son Thomas William Anson (1856-1918), viscount Anson, who had unsuccessfully contested Lichfield as a Liberal Unionist in 1886, but been defeated by a Gladstonian Liberal.21Morning Post, 8 Jan. 1892; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), pt. II, p. 224.