LIDDELL, Henry George (1821-1903), of Eslington House, Alnwick, Northumb.

Born at Edinburgh into a family with prominent connections to the mining and agricultural interests of Northumberland, Liddell was the eldest son of Henry Thomas Liddell, who had sat as a Tory member for the county, 1826-30.1He also sat for North Durham, 1837-47, and Liverpool, 1853-55. HP Commons, 1820-32, vi. 114-8. His grandfather, also Henry Thomas, had rebuilt the family seat of Ravensworth Castle, near Durham, in 1808, and had been created Baron Ravensworth in 1821. Following in his father’s footsteps, Liddell came forward in the Conservative interest to contest Northumberland South at the general election of 1852. He declared himself a ‘decided supporter’ of Derby’s administration and stressed his attachment, ‘by principle, by education, and by conviction’ to the established Church. A contest was not anticipated, but the late appearance of a second Liberal candidate produced a keenly fought campaign, in which Liddell secured second place by a margin of 99 votes.2Poll book for the contested election at the southern division of Northumberland, 1852 (1852), 2, 28-31. Although listed by Dod as a ‘Liberal-Conservative’,3Dod’s Electoral facts from 1832 to 1853, impartially stated, ed. H.J. Hanham (1972), 234. He is also listed as ‘Liberal-Conservative’ in Dod’s parliamentary companion (1854), 222. he questioned the benefits of free trade in his campaign speech, and voted against Villiers’ motion praising free trade, 26 Nov. 1852. However, he divided in the minority for Hume’s motion for the removal of the remaining protective duties on imports, 3 Mar. 1858, and, throughout his parliamentary career, frequently stated that commerce was a means of tying nations together and avoiding war.

Liddell attended steadily in his first parliament. He was present for 111 out of 254 divisions in 1853, and for 98 out of 198 in 1856.4Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions of the House of Commons during the last session of Parliament (1857), 14. A frequent and capable debater, he was a dogged questioner of ministers, especially on foreign affairs. He voted for Roebuck’s motion for a select committee on the condition of the army before Sebastopol, 29 Jan. 1855, but later criticised the radical MP for attempting to enlarge the appointed committee, stating that his faith in him ‘as an independent member was shaken’, 23 Apr. 1855. He was in the majority against Roebuck’s motion to censure the cabinet, 19 July 1855. An opponent of income tax, he called Gladstone’s 1853 budget resolutions a ‘great injustice’ on property owners, and was in the minority in the subsequent division, 2 May 1853. He spoke out again against the tax, 23 Feb. 1857, insisting that Disraeli’s motion to abolish it posed ‘no danger’ to the country’s finances. He divided in minorities against the removal of Jewish disabilities, 24 Feb. 1853, and against church rate abolition, 16 May 1855.

Returned unopposed at the 1857 general election, he explained on the hustings that although he had been absent from Cobden’s censure motion on ministers over Canton, he considered their conduct to have been ‘ill-judged’.5Newcastle Courant, 3 Apr. 1857. A firm opponent of Palmerston’s government of India bill, Liddell stated that he was ‘not prepared’ to transfer power to ‘nominees of the crown’, 15 Feb. 1858. Four days later he was in the majority against the premier’s conspiracy to murder bill. Describing the late government’s India bill as ‘new-fangled ideas and crude notions’, 7 June 1858, he supported the Derby ministry’s efforts to steer its own measure through parliament. He was in the majority for a resolution on the ‘efficiency and independence’ of the proposed Council, 14 June 1858, but his amendment that its members ought to be allowed to sit at Westminster was defeated, 1 July 1858. A critic of government interference in the construction of railways in India, he chaired the 1857-8 select committee on the East India railways.6PP 1857-8 (416), xiv. 183. Supportive of the Derby ministry’s reform bill, he argued that the best test of a working man’s suitability to vote was a certain level of savings, 21 Mar. 1859, and divided in the minority for its second reading, 31 Mar. 1859.

Following his unopposed return at the 1859 general election, he contributed to the debate on the address by protesting that Palmerston’s foreign policy was ‘always alarming and often intrusive’ and that his influence was ‘destructive’ to European peace, 9 June 1859. In an extensive speech, he soundly attacked Palmerston’s ministry for its interference in Chinese affairs, 15 May 1863, and argued that the government was ‘attempting, by very doubtful and illegal means, to prop up a power they themselves had destroyed’, 6 July 1863. His subsequent resolution that ‘further interference on the part of this country in the civil war in China is impolitic and unnecessary’ came to nothing, 22 Apr. 1864, and he later vilified Palmerston for his ‘glaring inconsistencies’ in explaining the ministry’s policy towards China, 20 May 1864. He also criticised the ministry for leaving Denmark ‘in a scrape’, 5 July 1864, and was in the minority for Disraeli’s censure of government policy during the Danish war, 8 July 1864. His attitude appears to have softened a year later, however, when he praised A.H. Layard, the under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, for his ‘altered tone’, 30 June 1865.

Liddell, however, was not above supporting Palmerston’s ministry. Even though it gave him ‘considerable pain’ to ‘adopt a different course’ from his party, he backed the government’s commercial treaty with France as a means of averting war, 21 Feb. 1860. He was also a passionate defender of the shipping interest7Hansard, 31 Jan. 1860, vol. 156, cc. 366-71. and served on select committees on Danish sound dues, where he argued for their abolition, on harbours of refuge and on merchant shipping.8PP 1856 (380), xvi. 520; PP 1857 sess. 2 (262), xiv. 3; PP 1860 (530), xiii. 3.

At the general election of 1865, when he again was returned unopposed, Liddell gave muted praise to the late Liberal government, but only because it had been under the leadership of Palmerston, ‘who was a Conservative’, a mischievous comment that mirrored his recent endorsement of the ministry’s foreign policy.9Newcastle Courant, 21 July 1865. In his fourth Parliament, he voted against the Russell ministry’s reform bill, 27 Apr. 1866, and generally supported the Derby ministry’s representation of the people bill thereafter. He defended the bill against its lack of provision for enfranchising lodgers but criticised its insufficient scheme of redistribution, 26 Mar. 1867, and warned against reducing the county franchise to £10 and allowing the ‘town element’ to swamp the county electorate, 27 May 1867. He was in the minorities for J.S. Mill’s amendment to enfranchise women, 20 May 1867, and Robert Lowe’s amendment to introduce cumulative voting, 5 July 1867, but divided with the majority for the Lords’ amendments, 8 Aug. 1867. Absent from Gladstone’s motion for Irish church disestablishment, which he later described as ‘a violent, unscrupulous and unnecessary attack’, 22 May 1868, Liddell was a prominent critic of the Disraeli ministry’s decision not to resign on this issue, arguing that the government was ‘guided and governed by their opponents’ and was ‘powerless for good’, 18 May 1868.

Returned unopposed at the general elections of 1868 and 1874, Liddell remained an assiduous contributor to debate in the House, and on the death of his father in March 1878, took his seat in the Lords. A philanthropist, he supported the Newcastle branch of the Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, the Newcastle aged female society, and the Northumberland village homes for girls. He also served as president of the Royal Agricultural Society, the Institute of Naval Architects and the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries. After a long illness, he died at his seat at Eslington Park in July 1903. He was succeeded by his brother, Atholl Liddell, the fifth son of the first earl, on whose death without issue the earldom expired.10The Times, 24 July 1903.