VANE, George Henry Robert Charles William, viscount Seaham (1821-1884), of Holdernesse House, Park Lane, London, Mdx. and Seaham Hall, Sunderland, co. Durham

Born at Vienna, Seaham was the second son of Charles William Stewart, third marquess of Londonderry, an army officer and diplomatist who through his marriage to his second wife, Frances Anne Vane, had acquired the family’s extensive coal interests in county Durham.1E.M. Lloyd, ‘Vane [Stewart], Charles William, third marquess of Londonderry (1778-1854)’, rev. A.J. Heesom, Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com. Seaham was the eldest son from his father’s second marriage. His mother, with whom he was never particularly close, was a friend and confidante of Disraeli, with whom she corresponded regularly.2Seaham’s younger brother, Adolphus, was his mother’s favourite. See Marchioness of Londonderry, Frances Anne: the life and time of Frances Anne, Marchioness of Londonderry and her husband Charles Third Marquess of Londonderry (1958), 284. For his mother’s correspondence with Disraeli see Letters from Benjamin Disraeli to Frances Anne Marchioness of Londonderry, 1837-1861, ed. Marchioness of Londonderry (1938). Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, Seaham was appointed to a lieutenancy in the first Life Guards in 1845 but retired three years later, following his election to Parliament.3The Times, 7 Nov. 1884.

At the 1847 general election Seaham was brought forward by his father for Durham North. Londonderry, a belligerent opponent of Reform who had established the Durham Conservative Association in 1833 and held its purse strings thereafter, believed that his ‘great sacrifice and strenuous exertions for the Conservative cause in the country’ entitled him to ‘a right to look’ at his son’s ‘claims to representation as above those of all others’.4Quotation taken from T.J. Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms in reformed England: case studies from the North-east, 1832-74 (1975), 75. He subsequently demanded that Henry Thomas Liddell, the sitting Conservative, stand down in his son’s favour, and following a number of bitter exchanges, Liddell reluctantly acquiesced, leaving Seaham as the sole Conservative.5A. Heesom, ‘“Legitimate” versus “Illegitimate” influences: aristocratic electioneering in mid-Victorian Britain’, Parliamentary History, 7, pt. 2 (1988), 289-98. Although a supporter of free trade, Seaham positioned himself as ‘the farmers’ friend’ and advocated relief measures.6Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 76. He also confirmed that he would oppose repeal of the navigation laws, but declined to ‘make any other pledges’.7Morning Post, 16 July 1847. He was returned unopposed.

For all his father’s efforts to secure his return, Seaham made little impact in the Commons. In his first Parliament, he is not known to have made any speeches and was far from a regular presence in the division lobbies.8In the 1849 session he was present for only 23 out of 219 divisions: Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849. An opponent of the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy, he voted against the Roman Catholic relief bill, 8 Dec. 1847, and later opposed the Jewish disabilities bill, 15 Apr. 1853. As pledged, he voted against repeal of the navigation laws, 23 Apr. 1849. He voted with Disraeli on most other major issues, and backed his motion to relieve the distress of land owners, 13 Feb. 1851. Reflecting his family’s commercial interests, he sat on the 1851 select committee on the coalwhippers (port of London) bill, where he assiduously questioned witnesses.9PP 1851 (525), x. 2.

At the 1852 general election Seaham offered again as an ‘independent supporter’ of Derby and was returned unopposed.10The Times, 7 Nov. 1884. A more regular attender in his second Parliament, he voted for Disraeli’s defeated budget, 16 Dec. 1852, and against Gladstone’s subsequent economic proposals, 2 May 1853.11In the 1853 session he was present for 52 out of 257 divisions: Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853 His only known contribution to debate was a perfunctory one, backing his younger brother’s motion to delay the issuing of a new writ for Rye, where his family also had an interest, as he believed that ‘there was a necessity for further inquiry’, 13 May 1853.

On the death of his father, 6 Mar. 1854, Seaham succeeded as earl Vane and assumed the additional surname of Tempest by royal licence, 28 June 1854. Elevated to the Lords, he rarely intervened in debate. In 1867 he embarked on a special mission to St. Petersburg to invest the Emperor Alexander II with the Order of the Garter, and in return, he received the Grand Cross of St. Alexander Newski.12There were strong personal ties between the two families. Emperor Alexander I was godfather to Seaham’s younger sister, Alexandrina: Letters from Benjamin Disraeli, 23. Moreover, in 1835 Peel had offered the embassy at St. Petersburg to the third marquess of Londonderry who accepted, although the subsequent criticism concerning his pro-Russian sympathies prompted him to withdraw his acceptance: Lloyd, ‘Vane [formerly Stewart], Charles William’; The Times, 7 Nov. 1884. Following the death of his elder half brother, Frederick William Robert Stewart, in November 1872, he succeeded as the 5^th marquess and to the extensive Londonderry and Vane-Tempest estates in county Durham and in the Irish counties of Down and Donegal.13Morning Post, 7 Nov. 1884. In 1874 Disraeli, soon after taking office as prime minister, conferred on him the Order of St. Patrick.14Londonderry, Frances Anne, 300-1. Plagued by acute attacks of gout, he died at his Welsh residence, Plas Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire in November 1884.15The Times, 7 Nov. 1884. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Charles Stewart Vane-Tempest-Stewart, MP for County Down, 1878-1884, and viceroy of Ireland, 1886-1889. A small selection of Vane’s correspondence is held by the British Library, and the family papers and correspondence are located at Durham record office.16BL Add Mss. 69420, ff. 26-7; 69421, f. 22; Durham RO, D/LO.