CAVENDISH, Henry Frederick Compton (1789-1873), of Sutton Court, Chiswick, Middlesex of 34 Burlington Gardens, London

Cavendish was the son of Lord George Augustus Cavendish (1754-1834), the 3rd son of the 4^th duke of Devonshire, who had sat for Peterborough, 1775-80, Derby, 1780-Dec. 1796, and Derbyshire, 12 Jan. 1797-10 Sept. 1831. The parliamentary careers of Cavendish’s elder brothers, William (1783-1812) and George Henry Compton (1784-1809), were cut short by untimely deaths and he filled the vacancy at Derby caused by the former’s decease, soon to be joined at Parliament by his younger brother Charles Compton (1793-1863).1HP, The Commons 1790-1820, iii. 414-20; HP, The Commons 1820-32.

Despite his length of service, Cavendish was not a dutiful MP, in part because his military career often required him to be abroad, and in 1832 he was returned in his absence from the nomination, at which the show of hands for him was ‘very small’.2HP, The Commons 1790-1820, iii. 418-19; HP, The Commons 1820-32; Derby Mercury, 12 Dec. 1832. A silent member and moderate Whig, he divided against Matthias Attwood’s motion for an investigation into currency reform, 24 Apr. 1833, Tennyson’s motion for shorter parliaments, 23 July 1833, and Hume’s motion for a low fixed duty on corn, 7 Mar. 1834.3Hansard, 24 Apr. 1833, vol. 17, c.586; 23 July 1833, vol. 19, c.1152; 7 Mar. 1834, vol. 21, c.1347. That he served on the select committee on the metropolitan police, which reported that ‘an efficient and systematic establishment’ had been ‘practically attained’ for the ‘prevention, and secondly the detection of crime’.4PP 1834 (600), xvi. 4.

At the 1835 election his cousin, the 6th duke of Devonshire noted that ‘his conduct [had] made it impossible to expect anything but a defeat if he should attempt to stand for Derby’.5Duke of Devonshire to Viscount Duncannon, 25 Nov. 1834, quoted in C. Hogarth, ‘The 1835 elections in Derbyshire’, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal (1974), xciv. 45-59 (at 53). He declined an invitation to stand for Buckinghamshire and did not seek to return to Parliament, concentrating instead on his military career.6The Times, 5 Jan. 1835; HP, The Commons 1820-32. Cavendish’s nephews included the Hon. William George Cavendish, MP for Buckinghamshire, 1857-63, Lord George Henry Cavendish, MP for Derbyshire, 1834-80, and William, Lord Cavendish, MP for North Derbyshire 1832-34, who succeeded his cousin as 7th duke in 1858.7M. Stenton (ed.), Who’s Who of British MPs (1976), i. 70-71.. His grandsons by his eldest son and heir William Henry Frederick Cavendish (1817-81) pursued careers in the navy and army.8Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage (1890), 415-16.