HALL DARE, Robert Westley (?-1836), of Cranbrook House, nr. Ilford, Essex.

Considered by William Jerdan, editor of the Literary Gazette, to be ‘as upright and noble-minded a man as ever lived’, Hall Dare was a well-respected Essex country gentleman who rallied to defend the agricultural interest in the first reformed Parliament.2The autobiography of William Jerdan (1853), iii. 72-3. Although a Conservative, he ‘ever displayed a liberality of sentiment which disarmed the anger of his most determined political opponents’.3Essex Standard, 27 May 1836.

Born Robert Westley Hall, he was the son of ‘an extensive West India proprietor’.4Gent. Mag. (1836), ii. 221. In 1815 he married Elizabeth, whose father John Marmaduke Grafton (d. 1810) had added the name Dare to his own in 1805 upon inheriting the Essex estates of John Hopkins Dare, his wife’s son from a previous marriage. Upon his mother-in-law’s death in 1823, these estates passed to Hall, who likewise assumed the additional surname of Dare.5VCH Essex, v. 190-214; London Gazette, 6 May 1823. He and his father were among the signatories to a petition from plantation owners in Demerara and Berbice protesting against proposals by the colonial secretary in 1826 to allow slaves to purchase their freedom without their masters’ consent.6PP 1828 (010), xxvii. 291-2. Hall Dare inherited further estates in Essex on his father’s death in 1834. His claim for compensation for 273 slaves in British Guiana was settled after his death, with £14,452 14s. 1d. awarded in 1837.7Information from Legacies of British Slave-ownership project [www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs]. Hall Dare’s West India interests prompted him to see the chancellor of the exchequer (along with Viscount Sandon and George Grote) to discuss the duty on West Indian currants in May 1833: Morning Post, 8 May 1833.

Hall Dare took a significant role in local government, serving as high sheriff of Essex in 1821. He was lord of the manor of Theydon Bois, chairman of the Ilford magistrates, a commissioner of sewers, and a commissioner of assessed taxes.8PP 1833 (738), xxii pt. II. 4; PP 1834 (542) xiv. 160; Essex Standard, 26 Oct. 1833; PP 1830-31 (111), xi. 128. A committed Anglican, he spearheaded the campaign to create a new parish for Ilford, and succeeded in obtaining the status of a separate ecclesiastical (although not civil) parish in 1830.9VCH Essex, v. 249-66. His daughter Mary laid the foundation stone for the new parish church, built in 1829-31, and Hall Dare’s ‘indefatigable exertions’ in this cause were rewarded with the presentation of a silver model of the church by Ilford’s inhabitants: E. Tuck, A sketch of ancient Barking, its abbey, and Ilford [1900], 38. Despite his local prominence, he was less keen to enter Parliament. Having secured ‘a sort of passive acquiescence’ from Hall Dare to offer for Essex at the 1820 election, Jerdan wrote several letters to the press in his support, but Hall Dare decided against disturbing the county with a contest.10Autobiography of William Jerdan, iii. 67. In February 1830 his name was mentioned for a vacancy, but again this came to nothing.11The Times, 23 Feb. 1830. In April 1831 he chaired a meeting of Essex freeholders which voiced its ‘distrust and alarm’ regarding the Whig reform bill, although it supported moderate reform.12The Times, 28 Apr. 1831.

Hall Dare initially declined to offer for the new southern division of Essex in 1832, ‘in consequence of a family arrangement’, but eventually yielded to pressure to stand, although he did not personally canvass or contribute to the election costs.13Morning Post, 16 Nov. 1832; Essex Standard, 30 Nov. 1833. In his election address and on the hustings, which he rose from his sick-bed to attend,14Essex Standard, 22 Dec. 1832. he espoused a moderate Conservatism, so much so that the veteran Whig MP Charles Callis Western declared him to be ‘a good Whig; indeed, he was rather an ultra Whig, if one was to judge from his speeches’.15The Times, 20 Dec. 1832. Hall Dare himself later noted that his address had mistakenly led some people to believe that he would vote with Whig ministers: Essex Standard, 9 Feb. 1833. Though he had opposed the Reform Act, believing that it ‘was too sudden, and went too far’, he now promised to support its letter and spirit, and considered himself a Reformer rather than an Anti-Reformer. Declaring that ‘I love the Church, but I am not blind to the defects that disfigure the establishment’, he advocated tithe commutation and voiced his hostility to non-residence and pluralities, citing his efforts to augment the living of which he was patron, so that it need not be held in plurality. His West India interests were reflected in his tentative stance on the slavery question, declining to endorse immediate abolition, but instead wishing to end it ‘at the earliest period compatible with the well-being of the slaves themselves – with a just consideration of the claims of private property’. He was more forthright on the need to ‘afford due protection to the Agricultural Interest’. He wished to abolish the house and window taxes, and others ‘which press on the farmers’ and substitute a property tax. He would go to Parliament ‘independent in the fullest sense of the word, and unshackled by any party pledges... free to exercise a dispassionate judgment, and to vote according to my conscience’.16Essex Standard, 24 Nov. 1832, 22 Dec. 1832.

Hall Dare topped the poll as the lone Conservative candidate. He was unable to attend a celebratory dinner at Bishop’s Stortford in February 1833 due to ill-health, which dogged his parliamentary career.17Essex Standard, 9 Feb. 1833. He did, however, attend dinners at Ilford, where he ‘spoke forcibly’ against the ballot,18Ibid. and Epping, where he affirmed that that ‘he had been called a Whig and a Radical. He was neither’, and reiterated his support for the Church and the corn laws.19Essex Standard, 16 Feb. 1833. Throughout his time as MP he was a generous patron of local causes, particularly those associated with the Anglican church.20Among the causes to which Hall Dare subscribed were the Romford Ladies’ Benevolent Society, Anglican schools at Colchester and Romford, Brentwood Episcopal chapel and the Chelmsford and West Essex Church Missionary Society: Essex Standard, 8 June, 26 Oct. 1833, 22 Feb., 2 Aug. 1834, 10 Oct. 1834. He also gave £40 for the distribution of coals to the poor of Ilford and Barking parishes: Ibid., 26 Jan. 1833. He donated £100 to a fund for distressed Irish clergy in 1835.21The Times, 1 Jan. 1836. Among the other bodies he supported were the Marine Society, the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Lives from Shipwreck and the Labourers’ Friend Society, which provided allotments for the poor.22The Times, 21 Mar. 1833, 7 Mar. 1834; Labourer’s Friend Society, for the purpose of disseminating knowledge beneficial to the farmer, the land-owner, the labourer, and our country (1832). He presided over the formation of the Epping Agricultural Society.23Essex Standard, 31 Oct. 1834.

Although a fluent speaker at local Conservative dinners, Hall Dare did not make ‘that display of eloquence in the body of the House which some of his friends had been pleased to anticipate’, believing others were ‘better qualified than himself’ to speak.24Essex Standard, 21 Dec. 1833. He was also hindered by ‘the delicacy of his constitution, which was much injured by his attention to his parliamentary duties’.25Essex Standard, 27 May 1836. He was more active in committee, serving on inquiries into the fees and salaries of Commons officials, and of MPs who held office under the Crown.26PP 1833 (648), xii. 180; PP 1833 (671), xii. 12. He sat on the 1833-4 committee which reported favourably on the activities of the metropolitan police.27PP 1833 (675), xiii. 402; PP 1834 (600), xvi. 2. Hall Dare also served on the committees on a bill regarding the licensing of theatres in and near London, and on the Longford election petition: CJ, lxxxviii. 184, 452. He was on the committee which examined the claims of the inventor Goldsworth Gurney, whose investment in steam carriages had been rendered worthless by the imposition of prohibitive tolls on their use.28PP 1834 (483), xi. 224; G.B. Smith, rev. A. McConnell, ‘Gurney, Sir Goldsworthy’, Oxf. DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. No redress for Gurney was forthcoming. He also sat on the committee which considered the case of Daniel Whittle Harvey, MP for Colchester, regarding the rejection of his application – first made in 1819 – to be called to the bar.29PP 1834 (503), xxviii. 328; PP 1834 (555), xxviii. 332; C. Elmsley, ‘Harvey, Daniel Whittle’, Oxf. DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. Despite the committee’s ruling in Harvey’s favour, the benchers continued to reject him. The previous year Hall Dare had been among several MPs who attended in Harvey’s support when he made a renewed attempt to put his case at the Inner Temple.30Morning Post, 8 June 1833. Together with Sir Thomas Lennard, MP for Maldon, he secured an act to improve turnpike roads in Middlesex and Essex (4 & 5 Wm. IV, c. lxxxix).31CJ, lxxxix. 53, 378, 395, 459.

Hall Dare generally voted with the Conservatives on religious questions, opposing the Irish church temporalities bill, 11 Mar. 1833, and pairing against the Jewish disabilities removal bill, 22 May 1833. He was in the minority for the Sabbath observance bill, 16 May 1833, on which he presented several petitions.32Morning Chronicle, 17 May 1833. In June and July 1834 he presented over 130 petitions from South Essex ‘against the unwarrantable claims advanced by the Dissenters’ on the church rates question.33Essex Standard, 19 July 1834. He opposed further electoral reform, dividing against the ballot, 25 Apr., and shorter parliaments, 23 July 1833. He took the opportunity to speak when petitions were presented on matters affecting his constituents, supporting a petition for reform of the taxes on carts in March 1833.34Essex Standard, 23 Mar. 1833. He also backed a petition from Epping and Harlow calling for better education for the poor, 25 Apr. 1833. Presenting a petition against the 1830 Beer Act, he blamed it for ‘increasing demoralization, adding to crime, and increasing the poor-rates’, 25 Apr. 1833,35Derby Mercury, 1 May 1833. and again attacked the measure’s ‘pernicious effects’, 17 July 1834. He served on the 1834 select committee on drunkenness.36PP 1834 (559), viii. 316. His support for repeal of the malt duty stemmed in part from his belief that it would, as he told the Essex and Colchester True Blue and Conservative Club in November 1833, ‘strike at the root of those pests of society, the beer shops’ by allowing brewing at home.37Essex Standard, 30 Nov. 1833. He was absent from the vote on Sir William Ingilby’s motion to reduce malt duty to 10s., 26 Apr. 1833, but spoke in Ingilby’s support when Althorp attempted to reverse this decision, 29 Apr. 1833, declaring that he ‘was ready to reduce the whole of the Malt-tax, and substitute a Property-tax’.

His opposition to malt duty also reflected Hall Dare’s wider concern to relieve the burdens of the agricultural interest, which he feared was threatened by ‘the democracy – the ten-pounders – men who did not understand their own interests, but who, having obtained the power, rushed blindly into excess, and endeavoured to overturn the landed interest’.38Essex Standard, 30 Nov. 1833. In its defence he was prepared to chart an independent course, entering the lobbies with Radical MPs on occasion. He was in the minorities for Thomas Attwood’s motion for an inquiry into the causes of distress, 21 Mar. 1833; George Robinson’s motion for a select committee on taxation, 26 Mar. 1833; and Attwood’s motion for an inquiry into the monetary system, 24 Apr. 1833. He subsequently noted that he was ‘one of the band of Members who were known by the designation of the Currency Club’.39Essex Standard, 16 Jan. 1835. He was absent from the early part of the 1834 session due to ill-health, but returned to Westminster to divide for Chandos’s motion on relief to the agricultural interest, 21 Feb., and Ingilby’s motion for repeal of the malt duty, 27 Feb. 1834, also speaking and presenting petitions in support of the latter.40Essex Standard, 22 Feb. 1834. He opposed Hume’s motion for a low fixed duty on corn, 7 Mar. 1834.

Hall Dare visited the Isle of Wight for the benefit of his health in September 1834.41Essex Standard, 5 Sept. 1834. Ongoing illness meant that his eldest son canvassed and attended dinners on his behalf when electioneering commenced that December.42Ipswich Journal, 27 Dec. 1834; Morning Post, 12 Jan. 1835. Hall Dare gave his tenants a 10 per cent remission in rent in January 1835, but assured them that they were free to vote as they wished.43Essex Standard, 9 Jan. 1835. At the nomination, he affirmed his steadfast opposition to free trade, noting that he had drafted and presented numerous petitions defending the corn laws. He observed that some candidates had been asked to pledge to reduce taxation, but ‘he had never given a pledge, and he never would’. He did, however, express support for any proposal which would ‘remove the pressure upon productive industry, and... cause the agriculturists to emerge from that gloom in which they had been plunged’, and, in words which would come back to haunt him, added that ‘he would certainly vote for the total extinction of the malt-tax’. He promised ‘a full, fair, but independent support’ to Peel’s ministry, and again endorsed tithe commutation and Church reform.44The Times, 13 Jan. 1835. He topped the poll, but was absent from the declaration as two of his children were seriously ill.45Essex Standard, 23 Jan. 1835. He did, however, attend a celebratory dinner at Chelmsford: Ibid., 30 Jan. 1835.

He continued to vote with the Conservatives, including on the speakership, 19 Feb, and the address, 26 Feb. 1835. His party loyalty was tested when Chandos brought a motion for repeal of the malt tax that March. Fearing that defeat on this question would prove ‘fatal’ to the government’s prospects, Peel held a meeting for over 200 Conservative MPs, at which he warned that ‘they must make their choice between the agricultural and the Ministerial interests’.46Morning Chronicle, 9 Mar. 1835. Croker recorded that Hall Dare was among the most prominent of those who ‘manfully said that they would forfeit their pledges, and balk their constituents, rather than risk the existence of the Government’.47J.W. Croker to Lord Hertford, 10 Mar. 1835, in L.J. Jennings (ed.), The Croker Papers (1884), ii. 267. Disraeli recounted that ‘the Squires begin to rat rapidly from Chandos & some of the most furious & pledged repealers have already left him in the lurch’, naming Hall Dare among them: B. Disraeli to S. Disraeli, 9 Mar. 1835, in J.A.W. Gunn & M.G. Wiebe (ed.), Benjamin Disraeli letters: 1842-1847 (1989), iv. 338. Before voting against Chandos, 10 Mar. 1835, Hall Dare made a rare contribution to debate, emphasising that although he had spoken in favour of repeal, he had ‘disdained making any pledge’ on the hustings. He had been persuaded by Peel’s arguments, and wished to avoid giving power to the opposition, who were ‘enemies to the great agricultural body’. Notwithstanding these justifications, he suffered a crisis of conscience, and saw Peel immediately after the division to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds. Having taken the same course himself over Catholic emancipation, Peel empathised, but warned against ‘any precipitate and immediate step’, advising him to consult his committee before acting on ‘the first impulse’ of his ‘high and honourable feelings’.48Sir R. Peel to R.W. Hall Dare, [11 Mar. 1835], Add. MS. 40416, ff. 404-5. Hall Dare duly went to Chelmsford, where he was reassured that as he had refused to pledge, he could retain his seat ‘without the sacrifice of character’.49R.W. Hall Dare to Sir R. Peel. 12 Mar. [1835], Add. MS. 40417, ff. 23-4. He published an address defending his vote, which the Essex Standard praised as ‘honest’ and ‘manly’.50Essex Standard, 13 Mar. 1835. There were, however, calls for his resignation, with one opponent protesting that ‘the idle distinction between promises and pledges will not serve’.51Morning Chronicle, 19 Mar. 1835. See also Morning Chronicle, 16 Mar. 1835. He responded that he would resign if asked to do so by a majority of those who had elected him.52Morning Chronicle, 21 Mar. 1835.

Hall Dare was absent from two calls of the House, 29 Mar., 1 Apr., but was present to divide against Russell’s motion on the Irish Church, 2 Apr. 1835.53Essex Standard, 3 Apr. 1835. He was in the minorities for Chandos’s motion for agricultural relief, 25 May; Cayley’s motion for a silver standard, 1 June; and Robinson’s motion for an inquiry into taxation, 12 June 1835. He attended a meeting in June 1835 at which the South Essex Conservative Association was established.54Morning Post, 2 June 1835. He supported the presentation to Melbourne of a memorial on agricultural distress that July.55Morning Post, 27 July 1835. His only committee service during this Parliament appears to have been on the paving of Regent Street.56PP 1835 (520), xx. 818. Declining health meant that he was unable to meet his tenants in January 1836, but he again remitted 10 per cent of their rents.57Essex Standard, 22 Jan. 1836. He paired against the address, 4 Feb. 1836, and does not appear to have participated in any further divisions.58Morning Post, 5 Feb. 1836. He did, however, present a petition from Romford in support of the Eastern Counties railway, 14 Apr. 1836, and attended the City of London Conservative Association’s dinner that month.59Ipswich Journal, 16 Apr. 1836; Hampshire Advertiser, 16 Apr. 1836. Hall Dare had been absent from a local meeting regarding the Eastern Counties railway in December 1835 due to ill-health, but had promised the venture his support: Essex Standard, 11 Dec. 1835.

Hall Dare died at his Essex residence the following month, and was buried in the family vault at Theydon Bois.60Morning Post, 21, 31 May 1836. One Liberal opponent eulogised his ‘ripened wisdom’ and ‘candid and temperate’ opinions.61Essex Standard, 10 June 1836. His Essex estates were divided between his sons. His eldest son Robert (1817-1866) offered as a Conservative at Frome in 1852 but did not go to the poll.62Morning Chronicle, 8 July 1852. He declined to go to the poll, deciding instead to petition (with success) against the Liberal candidate on the grounds of disqualification: Daily News, 28 Feb. 1853; PP 1852-53 (347), xiii. 3-4. He subsequently sold part of his Essex estates and purchased land in his wife’s native Ireland, settling at Newtownbarry House, county Wexford, where his son offered unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate in 1868: VCH Essex, iv. 251-5; Law Times, 14 Apr. 1860; http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie:8080/LandedEstates/jsp/family-show.jsp?id=197; The Times, 29 Sept. 1868. The MP’s other surviving sons, Francis Marmaduke and Henry, served in the army, and the former received four medals during the Crimean war.63Tuck, A sketch of ancient Barking, 53. The latter, who inherited Cranbrook, was secretary of the Royal Agricultural Society, 1860-8,64Ibid., 37; The Times, 10 Dec. 1859; Farmer’s Magazine (July-Dec. 1868), xxxiv. 138. and married Agatha, daughter of Samuel Kekewich MP.65The Standard, 24 Apr. 1851. A collection of family papers is held privately in Ireland.66National Library of Ireland Report on Private Collections, No. 297.