SURTEES, Charles Freville (1823-1906), of Mainsforth Hall, co. Durham

Born at Heighington, county Durham, Surtees was the third son of Robert Surtees, of Redworth House. His grandfather, Crosier Surtees, who was described as ‘a designing artful man’ and ‘a bad character’, had acquired the Redworth estates through marriage to his cousin Jane Surtees in 1769.1H.C. Surtess and H.R. Leighton, Records of the family of Surtees: its descents and alliances (1925), 98-110. Surtees was also a kinsman of the historian Robert Surtees, author of the seminal History and Antiquities of the county Palatine of Durham (1816-1823), and his wider family owned extensive land in county Durham, including the Shildon colliery and railway.2VCH Durham, iii. 204-212. At the age of eighteen Surtees enlisted in the army, and went on to serve in India, where he was appointed captain of the 10^th Hussars in 1847. His elder brother, Henry Edward, also an army captain, was MP for Hertfordshire, 1864-68.3W.W. Bean, The parliamentary representation of the six northern counties of England (1890), 122.

At the 1865 general election Surtees offered as a Conservative for Durham South. The contest was a bitter one, and his campaign speeches, which consistently attacked Palmerston’s foreign policy, were often interrupted by disorder, but backed by the influential industrialist Ralph Ward Jackson, founder of West Hartlepool, he was returned in second place.4York Herald, 22 July 1865; Leeds Mercury, 26 July 1865. A frequent attender, he divided against church rate abolition, 7 Mar. 1866, opposed the Russell ministry’s reform bill, 27 Apr. 1866, and was in the majority for the motion of no confidence in ministers, 18 June 1866. A staunch supporter of Derby’s subsequent ministry, he followed Disraeli into the division lobby on all the major clauses of the representation of the people bill, and opposed Gladstone’s resolutions on the Irish church, 3 Apr. 1868.

Surtees spoke infrequently in the Commons, and his handful of known interventions chiefly concerned defence issues. He unsuccessfully urged the government to introduce pensions for widows and children of deceased militiamen, 8 May 1866, and his request for government action to protect the batteries at Hartlepool was also rebuffed, 20 May 1867. In an apparent protest against the proposed relaxation of the rules governing parliamentary oaths, his only known motion was for the oath taken by Roman Catholic MPs prior to its repeal in 1866 (29 & 30 Vict., c. 19) to be read by the clerk, 30 Apr. 1868. Gladstone criticised the motion as ‘an attempt to stir up the embers of religious animosity’, while Disraeli urged him to withdraw the motion, as ‘every Roman Catholic Member is equitably bound to conform to the existing law, and to that alone’, but Surtees, who gave no explanation for his motives, persisted until defeated.5Hansard, 30 Apr. 1868, vol. 191, cc. 1582-3.

At the 1868 general election Surtees was beaten by two Liberal candidates.6Leeds Mercury, 20 Nov. 1868. He remained active in local public life, however, and was appointed high sheriff of Durham in 1873.7The Times, 24 Dec. 1906. He offered again for Durham South in the Conservative interest at the 1880 general election, advocating ‘Beaconsfield and peace’, but was soundly defeated.8Northern Echo, 5 Apr. 1880. In 1868 Surtees had succeeded to the Mainsforth estates of the historian Robert Surtees, following the death of his widow. His eldest brother, Robert Lambton Surtees, in whom the inheritance was originally vested, had died in 1863.9Surtess and Leighton, Records of the family of Surtees: its descents and alliances, 98-110; VCH Durham, iii. 204-212. Surtees died at Charing Cross, London, in December 1906.10The Times, 24 Dec. 1906. He was succeeded by his only son, Brigadier-general Sir Henry Conyers Surtees, who published Records of the family of Surtees: its descents and alliances in 1925. The Surtees family papers are located at Durham University library.11Surtees manuscripts, Durham Cathedral library collection, Durham University: GB-0036-SUR.