CHALMERS, Patrick (1802-1854), of Auldbar Castle, near Brechin, Forfar

Of ‘ultra Reform principles’, Chalmers was ‘an active and efficient’ committee man whose parliamentary career was curtailed by a debilitating spinal disorder.1Montrose Review, qu. in Caledonian Mercury, 26 Mar. 1842; The assembled Commons (1837), 39. Although his lineage stretched back to the Chalmers of Balnacraig, Aberdeen, in the fourteenth century, Chalmers’s immediate antecedents were mercantile: his father and namesake was a London merchant and his maternal grandfather, John Inglis, was an ‘opulent East India director’.2Dod’s parliamentary companion (1835), 98; Gent. Mag. (1854), ii. 305; A. Bell, ‘Chalmers, Patrick (1802-1854)’, www.oxforddnb.com. After succeeding the former in 1826, Chalmers sold out of the army and became one of the principal landowners in the city of Brechin, situated near Auldbar Castle.3Ibid.; New statistical account of Scotland (1845), xi., pt. I, p.132.

Chalmers offered for the reformed constituency of Montrose Burghs at the 1832 general election, but although he described his rival as a ‘lukewarm and vacillating Reformer’, his own political opinions were vague.4Caledonian Mercury, 8 Dec. 1832. Unsuccessful in this attempt, the incumbent’s increasing unpopularity in the constituency facilitated Chalmers’s unopposed return at the 1835 general election, and he was unchallenged thereafter. However, in 1835 the presence of another Reformer, who later withdrew, impelled Chalmers to articulate a radical programme, including the abolition of lay patronage in the Kirk and a ‘sweeping Reform of Corporation and Municipal Abuses’.5Caledonian Mercury, 13 Dec. 1834.

In Parliament, Chalmers, who was ‘very punctual and attentive to the local interests’ of his constituency, divided with the Whigs in the key votes of his first session, including Irish church reform, 2 Apr. 1835, and continued to back the Whigs’ Irish policy in later years.6Montrose Review, qu. in Caledonian Mercury, 26 Mar. 1842. He honoured his commitment to political reforms by dividing in favour of the ballot, the repeal of the property qualification, 14 Feb. 1837, and the equalisation of the English borough and county franchise, 4 June 1839, and was also a consistent supporter of revision or repeal of the corn laws. His occasional interventions in debate were limited to brief technical points, usually on Scottish legislation, often during the committee stage.7Hansard, 26 Apr. 1837, 12 May 1837, vol. 38, cc. 286, 850; ibid., 16 May 1838, vol. 42, c. 1361. In 1836, however, he introduced a bill to facilitated the development of turnpikes in Scotland, which was referred by the Lords to a select committee, including Chalmers, which lacked time to investigate and produced a lacklustre report.8CJ, xci. 226, 246, 313, 320; LJ, lxviii. 174, 197, 242; PP 1836 (154), vi. 426; 1836 (547), xix. 336-40. In the same year, he proposed revising the Scottish law of hypothec, whereby landlords retained a preferential right in their tenants’ produce and livestock, but it went no further than the first reading.9PP 1836 (329), iv. 252; CJ, xci. 630, 764, 817. In 1837 his support was crucial in gaining parliamentary approval for proposed improvements to Montrose harbour, and in the same year he successfully lobbied for Brechin to have two extra small courts sessions.10D. Black, History of Brechin, to 1864 (1867), 207; Caledonian Mercury, 15, 22, 25, 27, 29 May 1837, 3 June 1837.

Two main themes were apparent in Chalmers’s extensive committee service. Firstly, he was concerned with railway bills and breaches of procedure, which seemed to demonstrate the necessity for different standing orders to be applied to different categories of private bills.11PP 1837 (367), xiii. 304-6; 1837 (489), xiii. 324-5; 1837 (226), xviii, pt. I, p.2; 1837 (428), xviii, pt. I, p.401; 1837 (429), xviii, pt. I, p.548; 1837 (495), xviii, pt. II, p.2; 1837 (519), xviii, pt. II, p.154; 1837 (520), xviii., pt. II, p.378; 1837 (537), xviii., pt. II, p.412. Secondly, Chalmers, like other reformers, was strongly committed to removing restrictions on communications, and it was later said that the 1838 report which endorsed Rowland Hill’s penny postage scheme report ‘owed very much to his courageous, clear-headed counsels and assiduous application’.12Gent. Mag. (1854), ii. 305; PP 1837-38 (278), xx, pt. I, pp. 2, 117, 143, 145; 1837-38 (658), xx, pt. II, p.2; 1837-38 (708), xx, pt. I, pp. 518, 522-6; E. Smyth, Sir Rowland Hill, the story of a great reform (1907), 119-20. Chalmers divided with the narrow majority which supported a low and uniform rate of postage. In the same year he supported ending restrictions on Bible printing in Scotland, but his belief that unfettered competition would provide a sufficient guarantee of scriptural integrity was not shared by others.13The committee recommended that the patents to the Queen’s printers in Scotland, which conferred a monopoly on Bible printing, as well as supplying public offices with stationery, should be discontinued. It also suggested that the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and the four ancient universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St. Andrew’s, appoint printers for holy scripture, but other printers would be permitted to publish Bibles providing that they offered sufficient securities: PP 1837-38 (670), xxiii. 322-6. Thereafter Chalmers was afflicted with a spinal disorder which effectively limited his parliamentary activity, and although he was again re-elected unopposed in 1841, he retired on health grounds, 6 Apr. 1842.14Bell, ‘Chalmers, Patrick’.

Despite his ailment, Chalmers continued to participate in local affairs, joining with other landowners to sponsor a public works scheme in Brechin in 1842, although for much of the time he was bed-ridden.15Black, History of Brechin, 217; Gent. Mag. (1854), ii. 305-6. ‘Always greatly interested in Scottish antiquities’, Chalmers expended his time, money and his depleted energies in publishing work in this field, his contribution recognised by his election as a fellow of the Scottish Society of Antiquities in 1846, and its London equivalent in 1850, having been admitted into the British Archaeological Association the year before.16DNB (1887), ix. 448-9. His publications included The ancient sculptural monuments of Angus (1848), The cartulary of the abbey of Arbroath (1856), and with others, the two-volume Registrum episcopatus Brechinensis (1856).17F. Boase, Modern English Biography (1892), i. 583; Bell, ‘Chalmers, Patrick’. In 1854, Chalmers, whose health had improved slightly, embarked on a European tour but was immediately struck down with smallpox, which aggravated his spinal problem, and he passed away at Rome, 23 June 1854.18Ibid.; Gent. Mag. (1854), ii. 305-6. Chalmers, who was childless, was succeeded by his brother John Inglis Chalmers.19Ibid., 306; Burke’s landed gentry (1871), i. 221.