BEAUMONT, Wentworth Blackett (1829-1907), of 144 Piccadilly Terrace, London; Bywell Hall, Northumb. and Bretton Hall, Wakefield, Yorks.

Born at Poltimore, Devon, Beaumont was a member of a politically distinguished and extremely wealthy family, who owned extensive estates and lead mines in Northumberland and Yorkshire.1IGI (Northumb.) His father, Thomas Wentworth Beaumont, represented the county as a Whig from 1818-26 and 1830-37, HP Commons, 1820-32, iv. 220; his grandfather, Col. Thomas Richard Beaumont, was Tory member for Northumberland, 1775-1818. His father, Thomas Wentworth Beaumont, Liberal member for Northumberland South, 1832-37, was reputed to be one of the wealthiest commoners in England. Beaumont succeeded his father at the age of nineteen, inheriting such extensive possessions that he could walk thirty miles in an almost straight line over his land in Northumberland and Durham.2The Times, 14 Feb. 1907. Although he began his long tenure over his estates during the short depression of the mid-nineteenth century, substantial reorganisation of the property, including the sale of land in townships and introducing a new drainage system, ensured prosperity and by 1866 there were fourteen working mines on the Bretton estate alone. In the same decade, he became patron of the North of England Institute of Mining Engineers.3J.T. Ward, ‘Beaumont Fam. Estates in 19th Cent.’ BIHR, xxxv (1962), 169-77.

Three months after his 23rd birthday, Beaumont came forward in the Liberal interest to contest Northumberland South at the general election of 1852. He championed free trade and state education for all religious denominations, and despite the presence of a second Liberal candidate, maintained that he was ‘neutral’. Although his Conservative opponent ridiculed his youth and alluded to his father’s silence in the House, he comfortably topped the poll.4Poll Book of the contested election for Northumberland South (1852), 23-31. Beaumont did, however, inherit his father’s reluctance to speak, and he remained silent for his first seven years in the House. His attendance was often lacklustre, and he was absent for 182 out of 257 divisions in the 1853 session, and 146 out of 198 divisions in the 1856 session.5Daily News, 21 Sep. 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), 14. He divided against Villiers’s motion praising free trade, 26 Nov. 1852, but supported Palmerston’s subsequent amendment, a vote which, he later explained, was given to avoid a premature attempt to displace Derby’s government.6The Times, 2 Apr. 1857. However he was in the majority against Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1852. He backed the Jewish disabilities bill, 11 Mar. 1853, and Gladtone’s budget resolutions, 2 May 1853, but opposed Berkeley’s motion for the ballot, 14 June 1853. He was in the majority against Palmerston for church rate abolition, 16 May 1855, but was consistently supportive of him thereafter. Beaumont followed the premier into the division lobby against Disraeli’s motion criticising the prosecution of the war, 25 May 1855, Spooner’s anti-Maynooth motion, 15 Apr. 1856, Disraeli’s motion for the future abolition of income tax, 23 Feb. 1857, and Cobden’s censure of the government over Canton, 3 Mar. 1857.

At the 1857 general election, Beaumont strenuously supported Palmerston’s leadership, particularly over China, and criticised Gladstone for resigning from the ministry.7Newcastle Courant, 3 Apr. 1857. Returned without a contest, he was absent for the division on the conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858, though he later claimed that he would have supported the government.8Ibid., 6 May 1859. His independent streak, however, was again evident in his second parliament when he divided in the minority against Palmerston over the property qualification bill, 10 June 1857, and voted for the Derby administration’s reform bill, 31 Mar. 1859. Using his maiden speech to the House to explain his vote on the latter, he stated that while he recognised the ‘necessity of being bound by party ties’, he would ‘with regret, but without hesitation’ support ministers as he felt Russell’s amendment to extend the borough franchise was a ‘trap’.9Hansard, 28 Mar. 1859, vol. 153, cc. 929-32.

He reiterated this position at the 1859 general election, declaring that on franchise reform, he followed ‘an independent course free from party tactics’, proof of which, he argued, was his support for Locke King’s motion for a £5 borough franchise and £10 county franchise, but his continued opposition to the ballot.10Newcastle Courant, 6 May 1859. Returned unopposed, however, he subsequently dropped his support for the £10 county franchise and divided against Palmerston over the county franchise bill, 13 Mar. 1861, and was in the majority with Disraeli in opposition to Edward Baines’ borough franchise bill, 11 May 1864. Beaumont did though consistently support the government on religious liberties. He made a rare speech to praise the Roman Catholic charities bill, 2 Aug. 1859, and divided in majorities for church rate abolition, 13 July 1859, and for the abolition of oaths at Oxford University, 16 Mar. 1864 and 14 June 1865. He sat on the select committee on the locomotive bill at the beginning of his third parliament, and in 1865 he was appointed chairman of the Hexham and Allendale railway company.11PP 1859, sess. 2 (116), v. 351. He also served on select committees on the salmon and trout fisheries bill, PP 1861 (433), xiv. 328, and the valuation of property bill, PP 1867 (322), xiii. 576.

Beaumont stood again without opposition at the 1865 general election and declared that ‘his heart and soul were liberal’.12Newcastle Courant, 21 July 1865. In March the following year, he asked Gladstone whether the government planned to introduce clauses into their reform bill to render payments for the conveyance of voters illegal and to pay the expenses of returning officers out of local rates, but the Chancellor stressed that redistribution had to come before revision of expenses.13Hansard, 22 Mar. 1866, vol. 182, c. 731. The same month, he declined an invitation from Edward Baines to attend a reform meeting as he did not want to appear ‘factitious’ in favour of the ministerial reform bill.14The Times, 24 Mar. 1866. As was the case in 1859, Beaumont took an independent line on reform. Along with Robert Lowe, Lord Grosvenor, Lord Elcho and Edward Horsman, the leaders of the ‘Adullamites’, he divided in the minority against the government’s reform bill, 27 Apr. 1866, and supported Lord Dunkellin’s wrecking amendment, 18 June 1866.15The Examiner, 7 July 1866. During Derby’s third administration, however, Beaumont generally supported Gladstone over reform, although he opposed him by dividing in the minority for Lowe’s amendment to introduce cumulative voting, 5 July 1867.

In a rare flourish of activity, Beaumont made a number of contributions to the corrupt practices debate in July 1868. He moved but subsequently withdrew an amendment that one half of the returning officer’s expenses should be paid out of the rates, 18 July, and four days later he spoke in favour of a clause to make illegal the payment of expenses for conveying voters. His amendment that a candidate not polling one fifth of the total number of electors should be liable, along with his proposer and seconder, for his share of the returning officer’s expenses was defeated 110-119, 23 July.16Hansard, 18 July 1868, vol. 193, c. 1450; 22 July 1868, vol. 193, c. 1632; 23 July 1868, vol. 193, cc. 1679-80, 1681-2.

Beaumont continued to represent Northumberland South without interruption until its abolition in 1885. A supporter of Gladstone over home rule, he was returned for Tyneside in 1886 and retired from political life at the 1892 dissolution. In July 1906 he was created Baron Allendale of Allendale and Hexham in recognition of his services to the Liberal party in the north of England. He died at his London residence in February the next year, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Wentworth Canning Blackett Beaumont, Liberal member for Hexham, 1895-1907. The family’s Yorkshire estate papers are located in the Bretton Estate Archive at the University of Leeds.