HAY, Sir John Charles Dalrymple, 3rd bt. (1821-1912), of Park Place, Glenluce, Wigtownshire and 108 St. George’s Square, London, Mdx.

‘An efficient member of the House and an authority on naval questions’, Hay came from a well-connected Scottish landed family.1Bradford Observer, 13 July 1865. His grandfather, Colonel John Dalrymple, succeeded in 1794 to the estates of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Hay, 4th bt., at Park, Wigtownshire. In 1798 he took the additional name of Hay, and was created a baronet.2Burke’s peerage, baronetage and knightage (1890), 683. Hay’s mother died four days after his birth in Edinburgh, but his father remarried.3J.C.D. Hay, Lines from my log-books (1898), 1; Burke’s peerage, 683. Through his great-grandmother, Hay was related to the Cochranes, the renowned naval family, ‘which, perhaps, accounts for my going to sea’, although both his grandfathers were army officers.4Hay, Log-books, 1. He joined the navy aged 13 through family connections, and provided a colourful account of his career in Lines from my log-books (1898).5Hay, Log-books, 13-14. He initially served on the Cape of Good Hope station, and was then involved with anti-slavery operations off west Africa. From 1836-9 he served on the South America and Pacific station, followed by a spell in the Mediterranean, where he was mentioned in despatches for his role in the 1840 Syrian campaign.6London Gazette, 17 Nov. 1840. In 1842 he transferred to the China station, where he remained despite ill health, hoping that the commander-in-chief, his relative Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane, ‘might possibly look after my interests and promotion’.7Hay, Log-books, 118. By 1846 he had risen to commander, and ‘his most brilliant exploit’ came three years later with ‘the complete defeat... of Sha-ping-tzai, a redoubtable pirate... in the Tongking river’.8Geographical Journal (1913), xxxix. 292. He was promoted to captain in 1850, and spent the following year at Portsmouth’s Royal Naval College. He commanded the Hannibal during the Crimean war, taking part in the capture of Kerch and Kinburn, and being decorated for his efforts. He ended his service afloat in 1859 in command of the Indus, flagship on the North America and West Indies station.9This account of Hay’s service is based on A. Lambert, ‘Hay, Sir John Charles Dalrymple’, Oxf. DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]; Hay, Log-books, passim. William Ferrand, MP for Devonport, regarded him as ‘one of the most brilliant members of the Royal navy’.10The Times, 30 Oct. 1863. On his return home in 1859, Hay hoped to enter the Commons to represent naval interests, his publication the previous year of a pamphlet on British naval defences having demonstrated his willingness to enter the political arena.11Hay, Log-books, 229; J.C.D. Hay, Our naval defences and the cost and necessity of a Channel fleet (1858). He was appointed to the 1859-60 royal commission inquiry into Greenwich hospital, and from 1860 chaired a committee investigating the use of iron plates for protecting ships, being elected FRS in recognition of his efforts when it reported in 1864.12Hay, Log-books, 228-9, 231, 243.

Hay initially canvassed at Wakefield in June 1860, when he noted that he could already have been in Parliament had he offered as a Liberal. However, although a Conservative, he was ‘not so rabid... as to wish to overthrow a Ministry which might be doing good service’, particularly as he considered Palmerston ‘a tolerably sound Conservative at heart’. A member of the Scottish Kirk, he voiced sympathy with the Church of England, and was keen to see the church rates issue resolved by a measure which would ‘relieve conscientious Dissenters’, such as that advocated by his brother-in-law, John Hubbard (MP for Buckingham).13Leeds Mercury, 22 June 1861. Hay was an elder of Old Luce parish: Hay, Log-books, 246. However, the issue of the writ – suspended following extensive corruption at the 1859 contest – was delayed. Although there were rumours that Hay, who succeeded to his father’s estates in March 1861, would instead offer for a vacancy at Plymouth, he stayed faithful to Wakefield, and defeated a Liberal opponent in February 1862.14Morning Chronicle, 23 Sept. 1861. He declared himself ‘a friend of the present Administration, so far as its foreign policy was concerned’, and emphasised the need for administrative reform and a strong army and navy. He opposed the ballot, and wished to see education extended ‘so that the franchise might be safely given to the people’.15The Times, 27 Feb. 1862; Leeds Mercury, 27 Feb. 1862. His speech demonstrated his interest in Canadian affairs, praising that country’s loyalty during the American war.16Hay, who had travelled in Canada, was involved with the formation of the British North American Association in January 1862, and in the same year published a pamphlet which suggested the creation of a Canadian hereditary peerage, in order to strengthen bonds between Canada and the mother country: The Times, 31 Jan. 1862; J.C.D. Hay, The reward of loyalty (1862).

Hay informed his constituents in 1862 that ‘he was not a talking member, but he attended on the Committees’.17The Era, 26 Oct. 1862. This was not, however, true of naval matters, where he frequently contributed to debate, ‘carping and cavilling at our naval administration’, according to The Scotsman.18Cited in Leeds Mercury, 17 Mar. 1865. The Belfast News-letter deemed him one of the ‘bores’ and ‘perfect nuisances’ who would not be missed in the House after their defeat in 1865.19Belfast News-letter, 25 July 1865. While Hay spoke knowledgeably on almost every naval question, there were several particular issues he pursued. Unsurprising, given his role on the iron-plate committee, he took an expert interest in naval armaments – a subject on which he contributed an article to the Quarterly Review20J.C.D. Hay, ‘Our ships and guns: their defects and the remedy’, Quarterly Review (1865), cxvii. 419-30. – and served on the select committee on ordnance, 1862-3.21PP 1862 (448), vi. 111; PP 1863 (487), xi. 1. He rarely missed an opportunity to argue that funds would be more effectively spent on iron-clad ships than on land fortifications such as the Spithead forts.22Among his speeches on this theme were those of 31 Mar. 1862, 6 July 1863, 13 July 1863 and 19 July 1864. His motion to suspend fort-building at Plymouth was defeated by 149 votes to 89, 10 July 1862. Hay also explained his preference for ships over fixed fortifications to an inquiry into the Spithead forts: PP 1862 [3005], xxvii. 18. In the same year, he served on a select committee on communication with East India, which investigated ways to avoid the circumnavigation of Ceylon: PP 1862 (266), vii. 3. His second major interest was naval remuneration, promotion and retirement procedures, particularly the position of officers on the reserved list, an issue on which he had lobbied before entering Parliament.23Hay, Log-books, 234-5. His motion for an address to the queen on the latter was defeated by 72 votes to 66, 21 Mar. 1862, and that for a select committee by 108 votes to 92, 27 June 1862. In January 1863, after consultation with fellow officers, he wrote to the First Lord of the Admiralty outlining a detailed scheme on promotion and retirement.24PP 1863 (51), xxxvi. 121ff. The following month, in what was perceived as a censure motion on the government’s management of the navy, he pressed for an address to the queen on this matter, but had to accept a select committee, 24 Feb. 1863, to which he was appointed.25Caledonian Mercury, 28 Feb. 1863; PP 1863 (501), x. 106. The committee’s recommendations for reform were considerably less extensive than those advocated by Hay.

Disregarding Palmerston’s requests to drop the matter, Hay pressed another issue of concern to naval officers, the lengthy delays in distributing prize money, notably in relation to the capture of Kerch (1855), at which Hay had served, 8 July 1862.26Hay, Log-books, 236-8. The following year, showing that ‘he was as good a lawyer as a sea captain’ (in the words of Lord Clarence Paget), he carried a bill to facilitate distribution of prize money.27Hansard, 17 June 1863, vol. 171, c. 1010; PP 1863 (147), iii. 133ff.; PP 1863 (219), iii. 147ff. Despite the Admiralty’s opposition, the bill, which restored the right of naval officers to appoint agents to handle their interests with regard to prize money, passed its first reading in the Commons, 1 June 1863, its second reading, 17 June 1863, and its third reading, 10 July 1863, and received the royal assent, 28 July 1863. Having served on the commission on Greenwich hospital, Hay defended its recommendations for reform of the hospital’s management, 19 June 1863, and urged their adoption, 3 June 1864. He supported ministerial efforts at reform, 25 Apr. 1865, although disagreeing on some details, 8 June 1865. Hay was a keen proponent of the construction of harbours of refuge, dividing in minorities on this issue, 6 May 1862, 13 June 1865. From 1862 until 1874 he was a public works loan commissioner advising on loans for harbours.28Hay, Log-books, 239. He also argued for improved dock provision overseas, notably at Malta, where he had served29On Malta, see his speeches of 12 June 1862, 24 July 1863 and 22 Feb. 1864., and sat on and testified before the 1864 committee on dockyards.30PP 1864 (270), viii. 7; PP 1864 (496), viii. 75. Hay’s evidence concerned the docks at Halifax: PP 1864 (496-I), viii. 291. Hay took a particular interest in the 1863-4 Ashanti war, all the more so after his half-brother’s death as a result of conditions there.31Thomas Dalrymple Hay was a captain in the 17th foot: Hay, Log-books, 215-16. In an uncharacteristically emotive speech which Sir John Trelawny found ‘in parts, rather violent’, marring his case, he moved a censure motion on government mismanagement of the campaign – ‘I entreat you to lay the blood of our brethren... at the door of Her Majesty’s Ministers’ – which was defeated by 233 votes to 226 after the government frantically sent cabs for its supporters, 17 June 1864.32T. Jenkins (ed.), The parliamentary diaries of Sir John Trelawny, 1858-1865 (1990), 288; Belfast News-letter, 21 June 1864. The following year Hay served on a select committee which advised against any further extension of British territory in west Africa.33PP 1865 (412), v. 1. Hay continued his interest in West Africa, publishing Ashanti and the Gold Coast; and what we know of it (1874).

Hay generally divided with the Conservative party, opposing the ballot and franchise extension, and the abolition of church rates and university tests. Although preoccupied with naval matters, he did pursue other issues. Together with three Scottish MPs, he introduced the bank notes (Scotland) bill, 16 Mar. 1864, which aimed to increase the supply of paper money by allowing any Scottish bank to issue notes against gold, but did not press it to a second reading, 27 Apr. 1864.34PP 1864 (53), i. 73. His bank of England notes (Scotland) bill, to make English notes legal tender there, also faltered at the second reading, 22 June 1864.35PP 1864 (115), i. 65. He seconded Hubbard’s unsuccessful motion against the inequalities of the income tax, 14 June 1864. In February 1865 Hay joined a deputation which urged the Home Secretary to rescind restrictions on the driving of steam traction engines on roads, a matter of concern to his constituents.36Leeds Mercury, 11 Feb. 1865. He put his name to the locomotives on roads bill, which rather than entirely prohibiting daytime use, specified precautions such as having a man walk ahead of the engine, and which passed its third reading, 15 May 1865.37PP 1865 (63), ii. 665.

While there was much truth in the Leeds Mercury’s assertion that Hay ‘would be a representative of the navy and not of Wakefield’, he did not wholly neglect local concerns.38Leeds Mercury, 22 June 1861. He displayed ‘extreme diligence’ in lobbying for Wakefield rather than Leeds to become the new location for the West Riding assizes.39Leeds Mercury, 19 Feb. 1864. However, with Palmerston opposed, he was defeated by 138 votes to 119 on this question, 19 Feb. 1864, later reflecting that ‘it was hard for a private Member to beat a minister’.40Leeds Mercury, 19 Nov. 1864. He cultivated Wakefield with regular autumn visits, attending licensed victuallers’ dinners, giving prizes for the local rifle corps, and addressing the Church Institution.41The Era, 26 Oct. 1862; Leeds Mercury, 16 Oct. 1863, 29 Oct. 1863, 5 Nov. 1864, 19 Nov. 1864; The Times, 8 Oct. 1863. Hay took on various directorships, including the Portpatrick railway, which ran across his estates, the London Bank of Scotland, the Land Securities Company and Gale’s Protected Gunpowder Company.42Hay, Log-books, 246, 260; The Times, 4 Dec. 1863, 12 Feb. 1864; Birmingham Daily Post, 30 Sept. 1865. In 1864 he became a director of the Millwall Shipbuilding Company, and the following year became one of the founding directors of Reuters Telegraph Company.43Hay, Log-books, 243, 246-7. As director at Millwall, he presided over the failed launch of the Northumberland in the presence of the Prince of Wales, and was entrusted with arrangements for its subsequent successful launch: Ibid., 250-2; The Times, 19 Mar. 1866, 18 Apr. 1866.

Hay was defeated by a local Liberal opponent at Wakefield in 1865. At the hustings he was rather more critical of Palmerston’s foreign policy than in 1862, and had to defend himself against charges of having spoken disrespectfully of the premier.44Leeds Mercury, 12 July 1865; The Times, 12 July 1865. Hay allegedly depicted Palmerston as almost an imbecile, stating that ‘it is pitiable to see the old man almost led into the House from time to time to say a few words’: Wakefield poll book 1865 (1866), vi. He next offered for the vacancy at Tiverton caused by Palmerston’s death, and recalled ‘a long and pleasant canvass’ among Devon’s farmers, where he was expected to drink ‘a tumbler of hot rough cider’ at each house, ‘which one only successfully evaded by allowing half to spill over the horse’s mane’.45Hay, Log-books, 249-50. Introduced to the constituency by Sir Stafford Northcote, who declared that ‘a better or more useful man did not sit on the Conservative side... during the last Parliament’, Hay opposed the abolition of church rates and a £6 borough franchise, but thought fancy franchises ‘wise and prudent’. He declared his lack of confidence in Russell’s foreign policy.46Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, 10 Jan. 1866; The Times, 10 Jan. 1866. He lost out to the former Liberal MP in February 1866 by 46 votes. However, Northcote’s resignation from his Stamford seat (to offer at North Devon), allowed Hay, at the invitation of Northcote’s colleague, Lord Cranborne, to be elected unopposed in his place on the interest of the marquis of Exeter.47Hay, Log-books, 255. Hay in his memoirs recorded that his friendship with Lord Cranborne was due to the fact that he had sat immediately behind him in the House, and that they had both contributed to the Quarterly Review: Ibid., 254. On his return that May, he attacked the Liberal reform bill, arguing for a suffrage ‘based upon intelligence, education, taxation, and property’.48Pall Mall Gazette, 9 May 1866.

Hay resumed his questioning of the government on naval matters. When Derby took office he was appointed as a lord of the admiralty in July 1866, whereupon he resigned all his directorships except Reuters and the Portpatrick railway, and was re-elected unopposed at Stamford. 49Hay, Log-books, 260. Given particular responsibility for ‘gunnery, transport, victualling, and stores’, Hay henceforth found himself defending the admiralty against attacks similar to those he had once made.50Hay, Log-books, 259. Hay oversaw transport arrangements during the Abyssinian campaign, 1867-8: Lambert, ‘Hay, Sir John Charles Dalrymple’. Contrary to his position in 1864, he argued that ‘the sufferings of the squadron on the West Coast of Africa were not so severe as had been represented’, 23 July 1867. He was also forced to justify continued expenditure on forts in order to honour existing contracts, 8 May 1868, and to explain why the claims of some captains on the reserved list could not be met, 2 July 1868. Hay did, however, make a critical stand against ministerial policy when the naval estimates prepared in November 1866 made no additional provision for iron-clad ships. After he and a colleague threatened resignation, agreement was secured with the treasury for 4 new iron-clads in 1867, overcoming Disraeli’s opposition.51Lambert, ‘Hay, Sir John Charles Dalrymple’; Hay, Log-books, 262-4. He served on select committees on retirement procedures in the army, and on admiralty accounts, and chaired an investigation into the iron shields defending Malta and Gibraltar.52PP 1867 (482), vii. 1; PP 1867-68 (469), vi. 207; PP 1867-68 [4003], xvi. He of course continued his Conservative voting habits, opposing the enfranchisement of compound ratepayers, 12 Apr. 1867, and of lodgers, 13 May 1867, as well as the disfranchisement of small boroughs. He argued for the survival of Wigtown Burghs as a separate constituency, 28 May 1868. He divided against Gladstone’s Irish church proposals, 3 Apr. 1868, and emphasised Scottish support for a Protestant state, 27 and 30 Apr. 1868.53In his memoirs, Hay recalled that he spoke on this question ‘not with much effect, but I succeeded in liberating my conscience’: Hay, Log-books, 269.

Although no longer in office, Hay maintained his keen interest in naval matters after he was re-elected unopposed for Stamford in 1868, protesting on his own behalf in 1870 when he was compulsorily placed on the retired list.54Lambert, ‘Hay, Sir John Charles Dalrymple’. He was again victorious in 1874, but was defeated in 1880. He came in for a vacancy at Wigtown Burghs later that year, before retiring in 1885. He declined to stand for an unnamed constituency in 1886 on grounds of age.55Hay, Log-books, 312. Nonetheless he was active in public life well into his ninth decade, involved with bodies ranging from the Institution of Naval Architects to the British Empire League.56The Times, 13 Apr. 1905, 16 July 1907. In 1875 Hay broke a family association of over 300 years by selling the Dunragit and Park estate, and the following year constructed a new castle at Craigenveoch, near Glenluce.57The Times, 7 Apr. 1937; M. Coventry, The castles of Scotland (3rd edn., 2001), 153. The castle is no longer standing. He lost his right eye while out shooting in 1879.58Hay, Log-books, 303. Hay was chairman of the board at Reuters from 1888 until 1910, ‘by which time he was sinking into senility’.59D. Read, The power of news. The history of Reuters 1849-1989 (1992), 48. He died at his London home in January 1912, and was buried at Glenluce Abbey.60The Times, 30 Jan. 1912, 5 Feb. 1912. His estate was sworn at £11,442 1s. 1d.61Lambert, ‘Hay, Sir John Charles Dalrymple’. He was succeeded as 4th baronet by his oldest surviving son, William Archibald, whose younger brother, Charles John, became 5th baronet in 1929. Neither pursued a parliamentary career.62Burke’s peerage, baronetage and knightage (1949), 979. A logbook from Hay’s service in the South China sea is held by Cambridge University Library.63http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/deptserv/manuscripts/naval.html