PAGET, Lord Alfred Henry (1816-1888), of Beaudesert, Staffordshire

Popular at court, in Parliament and in his constituency, Paget held household appointments in Whig and Liberal governments throughout the Victorian period. He was described by the Radical Thomas Perronet Thompson as ‘always a popular man with all parties, and a good specimen of the English patrician’.1L.G. Johnson, General T. Perronet Thompson, 1783-1869 (1957), 286. His father, Henry William Paget, 2nd earl of Uxbridge, owned land in north Wales and Staffordshire, was a hero of the French Wars and the battle of Waterloo, and was created marquess of Anglesey in 1815.2Anglesey, ‘Paget, Henry William, first marquess of Anglesey (1768–1854)’, www.oxforddnb.com. Paget’s mother was Anglesey’s second wife, the nobleman having divorced his first wife in 1810, which caused a contemporary scandal. Five of Anglesey’s sons became MPs, but Paget, like his brothers Lord Clarence and Lord George, remained on better terms with his father than his much older half-brothers, Lord Henry and Lord William, both of whom got into financial difficulties.3Marquess of Anglesey, ‘One-Leg’: the life and letters of Henry William Paget, first marquess of Anglesey (1961), 331-3.

Paget went to Ireland when his father was appointed lord lieutenant by George Canning in 1827. Anglesey was controversially recalled by the duke of Wellington in December 1828, but was reappointed by Earl Grey’s ministry the following year, after which the family became thoroughgoing Whigs in politics.4Anglesey, ‘Paget, Henry William’. Paget pursued a military career before being elected unopposed for Lichfield in 1837, on the interest of his father and the earl of Lichfield. Apart from the 1841 and 1852 general elections, when he was elected in second place, Paget was unchallenged in the constituency. Soon after his first election Paget was appointed as an equerry, part of Lord Melbourne’s strategy to surround the new Queen with Whig courtiers.5Anglesey, ‘One-Leg’, 309. John Cam Hobhouse noted that the young Victoria was impressed by the handsome Paget’s horsemanship, and contemporary rumours circulated that the nobleman was in love with the Queen.6Lord Broughton, Recollections of a long life (1911), v. 98; see also G. St. Aubyn, Queen Victoria: a portrait (1992), 123. At this time Paget appeared in newspapers ‘fairly often as a love-sick swain. He was said to have worn the Queen’s portrait over his heart, and even to have hung her miniature around the neck of his dog’.7Anglesey, ‘One-Leg’, 310.

A Whig loyalist, whose principles were ‘of a thoroughly Liberal stamp’, Paget rarely spoke in Parliament, apparently making his first contribution in support of the repeal of the corn laws in 1846.8Hansard, 19 Feb. 1846, vol. 83, cc. 1246-7; The Times, 6 Jan. 1853. After Russell’s accession to the premiership in July that year, Paget was appointed as clerk marshal and chief equerry to the Queen, positions he held jointly until 1874, with the exceptions of 1852-3 and 1858-9, when the Conservatives were in office.9F. Boase, Modern English biography (1897), ii. 1304. After voicing his disapproval of the City of London police’s handling of a royal procession in 1863, Paget supported that force’s amalgamation with the Metropolitan police.10Hansard, 13 Mar. 1863, vol. 169, cc. 1400-2; 21 Apr. 1863, vol. 170, cc. 511-14.Although he was largely silent, Paget had a decent attendance record, voting in thirty to forty percent of divisions in 1849, 1852-3 and 1856.11Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849; Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck (1856), 18. He also raised the issue of compensation to widows of soldiers killed in service, 2 Mar., 19 June 1855, advocating that the value of their husbands’ commissions be converted into annuities.12Hansard, 2 Mar. 1855, vol. 137, c. 69; 19 June 1855, vol. 138, cc. 2267-9. Paget’s views did not always reflect Whig conventional wisdom. Having opposed the ballot in 1839, after 1842 Paget ‘ardently supported’ it.13The Times, 21 Mar. 1857. Despite being generally favourable to political reform, Paget did not support Locke King’s motion to equalise the borough and county franchises, telling electors in 1857 that ‘he did not like some of these clap-trap motions that were only brought forward without any strength of party to carry them, merely as a kind of sop to get votes at elections’.14Staffordshire Advertiser, 4 Apr. 1857. His rather radical political views were not to the taste of his patron, Thomas George Anson, 2nd earl of Lichfield, who pointedly told his nominee in 1865: ‘you may be quite sure that as long as you support such people as Ld Palmerston we shall not disagree’.15Earl of Lichfield to Lord Alfred Paget, n.d. [1865], Anson papers, Staffordshire Record Office, D615/P(P)/4/2/4.

Paget gave loyal support to Palmerston, who had maintained the ‘honour of the British flag’ and successfully concluded the Crimean War, over Canton in 1857.16The Times, 21 Mar. 1857. Two years later, speaking at a by-election occasioned by his reappointment to the royal household, Paget complained of the ‘entire absence of any definite principles’ on the part of Derby’s late government, although he conceded that the Conservative party ‘was likely to carry moderately liberal measures’. However, he contended that the domestic policy of Derby and Disraeli displayed no principles, noting that having long opposed particular measures like Jewish emancipation and reform, they suddenly changed course in government. ‘It was difficult to deal with men of that calibre, or to have confidence in them’, he declared.17The Times, 7 July 1859.

Paget was unexpectedly defeated at Lichfield at the 1865 general election, despite ‘his popular character and his long connection with the town’, and did not seek a return to Parliament.18Birmingham Daily Post, 15 July 1865. He never attained the eminence of his brother Lord Clarence (1811-95), who was secretary to the admiralty 1859-66, but Paget, who was described by the Times as ‘one of the most conciliatory and good-tempered of mankind’, continued to be Chief Equerry until his resignation in August 1874 and remained clerk marshal until his death, when the position was abolished.19K.D. Reynolds, ‘Paget, Lord Alfred Henry (1816-1888)’, www.oxforddnb.com. A ‘well-known yachtsman’, Paget died on board his boat off the coast of Inverness.20Birmingham Daily Post, 27 Aug. 1888; Boase, Modern English biography, ii. 1304. He was succeeded by the eldest of his six sons, Arthur Henry Fitzroy Paget (1851-1928), who, like many of his brothers was a soldier.21Burke’s peerage (1949), 57-8. Paget’s youngest son, Almeric Hugh Paget (1861-1949) made a fortune in north America, was Conservative MP for Cambridge, 1910-17, and was created 1st baron Queenborough in 1918, only for the title to become extinct on his death.22Ibid., 1642; The Times, 23 Sept. 1949.