TYLER, Sir George (1792-1862), of Cottrell, nr. Cardiff, Glamorgan

A staunch Protectionist, Tyler took a keen interest in naval questions during his time in the Commons. His grandfather, Peter, had served in the army, but Tyler – who was born in Pembrokeshire – joined the navy in 1809, following in the footsteps of his father, Admiral Sir Charles Tyler, a friend of Nelson, whose distinguished career included command of the Tonnant at Trafalgar. His older half-brother, Charles (d. 1846), the only child of his father’s first marriage, also pursued a (considerably less illustrious) naval career.1J.K. Laughton, rev. A. Lambert, ‘Tyler, Sir Charles’, Oxf. DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]; W.H. Wyndham-Quin, Sir Charles Tyler, G.C.B., Admiral of the White (1912), 115. While a lieutenant, Tyler’s brother Charles in 1805 left his ship at Malta to pursue his infatuation with an Italian lady he had met there. Nelson interceded on his behalf with the Admiralty to keep his name on the naval lists. He was invalided out of the navy in 1811: Wyndham-Quin, Sir Charles Tyler, 116-18; J. Richards, Cottrell: Cottrell Park, St. Nicholas, Vale of Glamorgan (1999), 81. The Lively, the first ship on which Tyler served, was shipwrecked off Malta in 1810, and the following year, Tyler lost his right arm in an attack on the French at Quiberon Bay, for which he was compensated (in May 1816) with an annual pension of £200. From 1813-15, he served as his father’s flag-lieutenant at the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1815 was appointed commander of the sloop Harpy, which that November made a prize of a vessel of slaves en route from Madagascar. In 1820, the year after his marriage to the granddaughter of the third earl of Buckinghamshire, he spent 12 months as inspecting commander of the coast of Norfolk, and in 1821 undertook a special mission negotiating with the French over oyster fisheries. He moved to the half-pay list with the rank of captain in 1822.2W.R. O’Byrne, Naval biography, iii. 1218; United Service Magazine (1862), iii. 127.; London Gazette, 15 Nov. 1817. Tyler and his wife were married in Paris at the British Ambassador’s: Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (1819-20), vi. 231. In 1833, Tyler was appointed lieutenant-governor of the island of St. Vincent, where he superintended the abolition of slave apprenticeships in 1838, an event which he encouraged the freed slaves to celebrate ‘not by rioting or drunkenness, but by solemn thanksgiving to God’.3R.A. McDonald (ed.), Between slavery and freedom: special magistrate John Anderson’s journal of St. Vincent during the apprenticeship (2001), 288. One local observer praised Tyler and his ‘amiable family’ for their ‘urbanity and attention… to their guests on all occasions’, although the island’s Tory press criticised his ‘pusillanimity’ following a riot by Kingstown’s free coloured community.4McDonald, Between slavery and freedom, 161, 103n.

Rewarded with a knighthood for his colonial service, Tyler returned from St. Vincent in June 1840, and took up residence at Cottrell, near Cardiff.5Bristol Mercury, 6 June 1840. According to a family history, this estate had originally been left to the Tyler family in the will of Samuel Gwinnett (d. 1792), an unsuccessful suitor of his mother’s, but Gwinnett’s sister Emilia (d. 1807) had burned this will, thus inheriting the estate herself. In a fit of remorse on her deathbed, however, she left the property to Tyler, but first with a life interest to the second earl of Clarendon. Sir Charles Tyler bought out Clarendon’s life interest and moved to Cottrell in 1817. He continued to reside there after Tyler finally inherited on Clarendon’s death in 1824, making improvements to the estate during Tyler’s absence on naval and colonial service.6Wyndham-Quin, Sir Charles Tyler, 191-2; Richards, Cottrell, 68; C.F. Jenkins, Button Gwinnett, signer of the Declaration of Independence (1926), 18-20; Archaeologia cambriensis (1862), viii. 115. Wyndham-Quin’s account states that Samuel Gwinnett left the estate to George Tyler, but as he was only born after Gwinnett’s death, it seems more likely that Richards is correct in asserting that Cottrell was willed to Tyler’s mother. Tyler was lord of the manor of Bonvilston, near Cowbridge, and patron of the local school.7S. Lewis, A topographical dictionary of Wales (1844), i. 96. The living and court leet of the nearby manor of Llangan were held alternately by Tyler and the earl of Dunraven.8S. Lewis, A topographical dictionary of Wales (1849), ii. 24-36. As with other Glamorgan landowners, he possessed commercial interests: lead ores were found on his estates in the early 1850s, and he was a director of the Rhymney Railway.9W.L. Jenkins, A history of the town and castle of Cardiff (1854), 61; The Times, 23 Dec. 1854. In 1843, he served on the jury which tried the ‘Rebecca’ rioters following their protests against high turnpike tolls.10The Examiner, 28 Oct. 1843. He became prominent on local political platforms at the end of this decade, and in 1849 was among those who moved resolutions at a county meeting opposing repeal of the navigation laws.11The Times, 16 Apr. 1849. The following year, he supported the establishment of a society to promote Anglican church-building in the Llandaff diocese, and in January 1851 was one of the principal speakers at a county meeting against Papal aggression, asking whether they should ‘submit to the intrusion of the Pope and his myrmidons into this country?’12The Times, 5 Nov. 1850, 4 Jan. 1851.

Tyler was elected unopposed as Conservative MP for Glamorgan at a by-election in February 1851. (The previous incumbent, viscount Adare, who had taken the Chiltern Hundreds after succeeding as third earl of Dunraven, became Tyler’s relative by marriage in January 1856 when Tyler’s third daughter Caroline married the earl’s younger brother.) Brought forward with the support of the Bridgend Protectionist Society, his election address emphasised his Protestant and Protectionist sympathies, and his attachment to the sovereign.13R. Grant, The parliamentary history of Glamorgan 1542-1976 (1978), 44; The Times, 13 Jan. 1851. This attachment became a more direct one six months later when he was appointed as naval aide-de-camp to the Queen, a post which he held until October 1852, when he was promoted to rear-admiral on the reserved half-pay list.14Freeman’s Journal, 30 Aug. 1851; Morning Chronicle, 1 Nov. 1852. Although one historian suggests that ‘in a county rapidly being industrialised Sir George Tyler’s known adherence to Protectionism was slightly anachronistic, even eccentric’, his fellow Glamorgan MP, Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot, was also an opponent of free trade (on the Liberal side), and their political stance did not stop either of them being re-elected unopposed at the 1852 general election, when Tyler’s election address declared his support for Derby’s government, which he hoped would provide ‘measures of substantial relief to the agricultural interest’.15I.G. Jones, ‘Franchise reform and Glamorgan politics in the mid-nineteenth century’, Morgannwg, ii (1958), 57; The Times, 28 June 1852.

Remembered as ‘an active member’, Tyler was among the more assiduous members of the Commons in the 1853 session, voting in 145 out of 257 divisions.16Manchester Times, 14 June 1862; Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853. This placed him as the 68th most assiduous MP. He later became less attentive to his parliamentary duties, voting in only 49 out of 179 divisions in 1856, and that July he announced his intention to retire at the dissolution.17J.P. Gassiott, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions in the House of Commons during the last session of Parliament (1857), 25; The Times, 31 July 1856. The final months of his parliamentary career were beset by personal tragedy, with the death of his second son, Charles Frederick, in August 1856, aged 30, and of his eldest daughter’s husband, E.P. Richards, after a fall from his horse in November that year, aged 25.18Morning Chronicle, 28 Aug. 1856; Bristol Mercury, 15 Nov. 1856. Tyler generally voted loyally with the Conservative party, consistently opposing further measures of electoral reform, and dividing against Liberal ministers on the censure motions over the siege of Kars, 1 May 1856, and the Canton question, 3 Mar. 1857. He also voted against measures which sought to remove religious disabilities, such as the Jewish disabilities removal bill, 11 Mar. 1853, and the Oxford University bill, which removed the requirement to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles, 22 June 1854, and opposed the Maynooth grant, 19 Feb. 1857. Shortly after his return to Parliament, Tyler was among those MPs who attended a dinner in April 1851 given to Lord Stanley, ‘the leader of the country party’, at which protectionist policies were espoused, and he was also present at a protectionist demonstration at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, later that month.19The Times, 3 Apr. 1851, 30 Apr. 1851. The latter event was organised by the National Association for the Protection of Industry and Capital throughout the British Empire. Unsurprisingly he divided with the protectionist minority of 53 when the question of free trade was debated, 26 Nov. 1852. One question on which Tyler did revise his views was the repeal of the duty on advertisements, voting against repeal, 12 May 1852, but dividing for it, 14 Apr. 1853, although he remained opposed to the abolition of the remaining ‘taxes on knowledge’.

Tyler regularly contributed to debate on naval matters, but made only a handful of speeches on other questions, principally relating to Glamorgan. In his first known Commons speech, 30 Apr. 1851, he unsuccessfully opposed the second reading of the highways (south Wales) bill, concerned that south Wales was being made the object of ‘experimental legislation’, and that the costs of appointing highway surveyors would place an extra burden upon tenant-farmers. He returned to the issue, 18 July 1856, asking whether this Act might be amended, as there were local complaints regarding its workings. He spoke in support of a grant for the education of Welsh clergymen at St. David’s College, Lampeter, 7 June 1852, and again raised local concerns when he asked whether the barracks in one Glamorgan town might be enlarged, so that soldiers need not be billeted on private families, 7 Mar. 1856. (The following month, he divided for a motion to end the practice of billeting in Scotland, 7 Apr. 1856.)

Two kinds of naval question particularly attracted Tyler’s attention. He was keen to defend the honour of naval officers, a theme reflected in a speech he made on a clause of the merchant shipping bill related to salvage costs, 1 Aug. 1853: ‘he had often listened with regret to hon. Gentlemen when they condemned naval officers most unjustly and improperly, and without any feeling for a profession which had the real benefit of the country at heart.’ This concern led him to speak out on particular cases. He seconded Admiral Walcott’s motion for a select committee to inquire into the claims of Captain Dickenson regarding payments for salvage from the Thetis, a naval vessel wrecked off the coast of Brazil in 1830, but their efforts were defeated by one vote, 18 July 1854. Together with other naval MPs, he condemned the unfair treatment of Admiral Sir Charles Napier, who was being made a scapegoat for the perceived failure of the 1854 Baltic campaign against Russia, 8 Mar. 1855.

The second, broader question which Tyler regularly raised was the supply of sailors for the navy. Speaking on a clause in the merchant shipping bill which proposed to repeal the provision that three-quarters of every ship’s crew must be British, 12 July 1853, he warned the Commons (without success) ‘not to give way too much to the interests of the shipowner’, as this would diminish the potential availability of British sailors in an emergency. He spoke in support of proposals which would encourage seamen to enlist in the navy, 25 July 1853, and pressed the First Lord of the Admiralty to emulate the army in offering bounties, 16 Feb. 1855. He was also keen to see an effective naval militia established, first speaking in support of this, 27 Feb. 1854. Although he shared the doubts of fellow naval MPs as to ‘the inefficiency of the Naval Coast Volunteers’, 13 June 1856, declaring that ‘to look to that force as a nursery for our seamen was altogether out of the question’, in his last known Commons speech, 9 Mar. 1857, he protested against any cuts in its expenditure, seeing it as a potential nucleus for the naval militia he so keenly desired.20For other speeches by Tyler on the issue of manning the navy, see 16 May 1854, 27 June 1854 and 6 June 1856.

Tyler also spoke on a variety of other naval matters. His interest in the question of naval promotions when opposing reductions in the naval half-pay list, 12 June 1851, had a personal dimension, for Tyler was then one of the most senior captains on that list. He was also willing to intercede on behalf of others, pressing Walcott’s claims to be appointed to the Order of the Bath, 30 July 1855. Tyler called on several occasions for increased naval protection for the Bristol Channel, a matter which closely affected his Glamorgan constituents.21See Tyler’s speeches of 18 Feb. 1853, 9 Mar. 1855 and 7 Mar. 1856. His acknowledged position as a spokesman on naval issues was reflected in Bentinck’s motion that he should fill Cornewall Lewis’s vacant place on the committee appointed to inquire into the state of the army before Sebastopol, 28 Feb. 1855, as that committee should have at least one ‘naval gentleman’, but this proposal was defeated by 74 to 87.22This adverse vote does not seem to have been a personal reflection on Tyler, but was due rather to Roebuck’s suggestion that as Palmerston had nominated Cornewall Lewis to the committee, he should be allowed to nominate his replacement. His military expertise was demonstrated in his active engagement with the work of the select committee on Sandhurst Royal Military College.23PP 1854-55 (317), xii. 311ff. (His committee service was otherwise limited to committees on the Cork election petition and the Brecon collegiate church bill.24PP 1852-43 (521), xi. 2; PP 1852-53 (946), lxxxiii. 53.) He was also involved in military matters outside Parliament, such as the testimonial rewarding the late Lord Raglan’s Crimean service.25Daily News, 8 Aug. 1855.

Tyler continued his interest in naval matters following retirement from the Commons, attending the annual general meeting of the Royal Naval School in 1858.26Morning Chronicle, 25 May 1858. He also participated in local affairs, including a magistrates’ meeting in 1860 which appointed a surgeon for Glamorgan’s county gaol.27Bristol Mercury, 7 July 1860. He died at Dunraven Castle, Glamorgan in June 1862. His estate was sworn under £25,000. He left a life interest in his property to his wife; on her death, Cottrell and his other properties were to pass to his eldest son, George Henry (1824-1878), an army officer who had served in the Crimea and India.28Leeds Mercury, 25 Aug. 1862. The estate remained in family hands until it was sold in 1942: Richards, Cottrell, 118. Four of Tyler’s sons followed him into the military, but none entered Parliament, although his sixth son, Colonel John Hobart Tyler (1831-1918) was the ‘popular chairman’ of the South Glamorgan Conservative Association, and oversaw the return of Tyler’s grandson, Major Windham Henry Wyndham-Quin (1857-1952), who served as Conservative MP for that constituency, 1895-1906.29Western Mail, 11 Mar. 1895. As well as George William, Charles Frederick and John Hobart served in the army (the latter in the Bengal Staff Corps), while Gwinnett (1828-1886) served in the navy. St. Vincent (1834-1869) was a captain in the Royal Cheshire Militia, while the only son without any military connections was a vicar: Burke’s landed gentry (1937), ii. 2308-9.