FINCH, Heneage, Lord Guernsey (1824-1871), of Packington Hall , near Coventry, Warwickshire

A young aristocrat and Conservative loyalist, Guernsey was a staunch though silent, supporter of the agricultural interest during his unremarkable parliamentary career. The namesake and heir of the 5th earl of Aylesford, who had represented Weobley 1807-12, Guernsey had blood ties with other noble (and Tory) Warwickshire families, being a nephew of Henry Richard Greville, 4th earl of Warwick and brother-in-law of William Walter Legge, 5th earl of Dartmouth.1‘Finch, Heneage’, HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 746; Burke’s peerage (1949), 104-5, 547.

Guernsey was returned unopposed as a Conservative for South Warwickshire at a by-election in June 1849, after promising to ’fight the battle of the English farmers’.2The Times, 8 June 1849; Daily News, 19 June 1849. Although his protectionist principles were in accordance with local opinion, his return owed much to his father, whose ’high character and position in the county gave him a commanding influence’.3The Times, 28 May 1849; The Standard, 28 May 1849. Qu. at The Standard, 22 May 1849. In Parliament he joined his colleague and first cousin, George Guy Greville, Lord Brooke, in supporting protectionist and Conservative causes, although unlike Brooke, he is not known to have spoken. Guernsey divided in favour of Berkeley’s motion to reconsider the corn laws, 14 May 1850, and supported Cayley’s proposal to repeal the malt duty in 1850 and 1851. He cast votes in support of Disraeli’s financial policy, 13 Feb. 1851, 26 Nov. 1852, and opposed further instalments of free trade and political reform. Guernsey’s attachment to the Protestant constitution was indicated by votes in favour of the 1851 ecclesiastical titles bill, and Spooner’s anti-Maynooth motions, as well as his opposition to Jewish relief. A lax attender, Guernsey voted in just 5 out of 198 divisions during the 1856 session and after supporting Cobden’s Canton motion, 3 Mar. 1857, retired at the general election that year.4J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck (1857), 21.

Guernsey succeeded as the 6th earl of Aylseford in 1859 and thereafter devoted himself to agricultural improvements and county pursuits, including prize-winning breeding of shorthorn cattle, before dying at a young age in 1871.5Morn. Post, 11 Jan. 1871; The Standard, 11 Jan. 1871. His son and namesake, the 7th earl, did not pursue a political career during the course of a ’singularly chequered’ life, which included pugilism, gambling, owning and racing horses, disastrous investments, and high society scandal after his two unsuccessful legal suits against his estranged wife publicised her affair with the future duke of Marlborough, by whom she bore a son.6Birmingham Daily Post, 15 Jan. 1885; Bristol Mercury, 16 Jan. 1885; The Standard, 15 Jan. 1885; F. Boase, Modern English Biography (1892), i. 111. Having spent much of his fortune on hosting a royal visit, the impecunious earl shut up the family seat to avoid the repossession of heirlooms and moved to a Texas cattle ranch.7Birmingham Daily Post, 15 Jan. 1885. On his death in 1885 he was succeeded by Guernsey’s second son, Charles Wrightwick Finch (1851-1924), an army officer.8Burke’s peerage (1949), 103-4.