BUCKLEY, Edmund (II) (1834-1910), of Dinas Mawddwy, Merioneth; Grotton Hall, Saddleworth, Yorkshire

Peck, as Buckley was originally known, was the illegitimate son of the Manchester businessman Edmund Buckley (I) (1780-1867), Conservative MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, 1841-7, by Sarah Peck, of Manchester.1IGI; http://www.julianhuntlocalhistory.co.uk/dinas_diaries.php. His paternity was rarely acknowledged in contemporary sources, and genealogical reference works were equally reticent, but he was occasionally described as a ‘near relative’ or nephew of Edmund Buckley.2Dod’s parliamentary companion (1865), 156; Gent. Mag. (1867), i. 266. His father prevented him pursuing a military career, writing, 28 Oct. 1859:

You mentioned my refusing your going into the Army, I did this out of respect to your health for I was pretty certain in my own mind you could not stand the wet and cold and the wear and tear of what is required [,] besides you were always my greatest favourite and I felt much for you hoping that you would succeed me in everything and stand high in society.3Edmund Buckley to Edmund Peck, 28 Oct. 1859, qu. in F.S. Stancliffe, John Shaw’s, 1738-1938 (1938), 294.

His father, however, did permit Edmund to run some of his works, especially as he thought that his brother John Peck ‘cannot manage them’.4Ibid. Edmund Buckley I, who in 1858 was described as ‘probably the richest man in Manchester’, possessed interests in the iron, coal and railway industries, and left a personal estate valued at £140,000 on his death in 1867.5The diaries of Samuel Bamford, ed. M. Hewitt and R. Poole (2000), 56 (26 Dec. 1858); Calendar of Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration (1867), 200. Peck, who had assumed the name of Buckley in 1864, was one of the executors of the estate.6Ibid. He also inherited a number of properties including Plas Dinas, Merioneth; Higher Ardwick, Manchester; and Grotton Hall, Yorkshire.7Debrett’s House of Commons (1870), 41. The Welsh estate had been purchased in 1856, and became Buckley’s main residence. He built a Gothic mansion, a local railway and founded a quarry.8Collections, historical and archaeological relating to Montgomeryshire, 36 (1912), 52. In 1873 Buckley was estimated to own almost 11,000 acres in Merioneth, with an annual rental of £4,472.9B. Ll. Jones, ‘The “great landowners” of Wales in 1873’, National Library of Wales Journal, 14 (1966), 301-20 (at 306). However, his 91 Lancashire acres yielded £10,144.10J.K. Walton, A social history of Lancashire, 1558-1939 (1987), 128.

Buckley’s father had been a very popular figure in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and in 1865 Buckley offered for the constituency as a ‘Liberal Conservative’, voicing opposition to the ballot and ‘the lowering of the franchise’, which he believed would ultimately lead to universal suffrage. However, he denied ‘the charge made against the Conservative party that they were stand-still politicians’.11Birmingham Daily Post, 12 July 1865. Despite his stance on the hustings, Dod’s parliamentary companion recorded Buckley as saying that ‘the time has arrived when the Conservative interests of the country seem to require an extension of the franchise’.12Dod’s parliamentary companion (1865), 156.

Buckley does not appear to have spoken, or served on any committees during his first parliament. He divided in favour of the reduction and eventual repeal of malt duty, 17 Apr. 1866. In the debates on reform Buckley generally voted with the Conservative leadership. He backed Earl Grosvenor’s amendment to block the Liberal government’s reform bill without redistribution, 27 Apr. 1866, and Lord Dunkellin’s amendment for a rateable, instead of a rental, franchise, 18 June 1866. The following year he opposed enfranchising compound householders, lodgers and women, 12 Apr. 1867, 13, 20 May 1867, and giving county votes to urban copyholders and leaseholders, 24 June 1867. In 1868 he opposed Gladstone’s plan to disestablish the Irish church.

Buckley was granted a baronetcy by Disraeli in December 1868. He was re-elected for Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1868 and 1874. In May 1876 Buckley filed for bankruptcy in Manchester County Court. His liabilities were reputed to be £500,000 and the ‘losses are said to arise from speculations on [the] Stock Exchange’.13Sheffield Independent, 20 May 1876. Later that December a charge of fraud was brought against the baronet, who was accused of abusing his position as executor for the late Edmund Buckley’s estate to sell off land held in trust (for the family of his brother John Peck) and pocket the proceeds.14N.C. Moak and C.T. Cook, Reports of cases decided by the English courts, vol. 18 (1878), 641-2; Birmingham Daily Post, 5 Dec. 1876; Western Mail, 5 Dec. 1876; Manchester Times, 9 Dec. 1876. Summing up after stripping Buckley of his position as trustee, the judge declared ‘that he had been guilty of the grossest possible breaches of trust’.15The Times, 6 Dec. 1876. In spite of all this, Buckley remained an MP until resigning 15 August 1878, although he had not attended Parliament since his bankruptcy.16The Times, 19 Feb. 1878. Thereafter Buckley retreated to his Welsh estates, and engaged in country pursuits until his death in 1910. He was succeeded by his only surviving son Sir Edmund Buckley, 2nd baronet (1861-1919), upon whose death the title became extinct, as his sole heir had been killed in the First World War.17Burke’s peerage and baronetage (1931), 403-4; The Times, 22 Jan. 1919.