LASCELLES, Hon. Egremont William (1825-1892), of Middlethorpe Lodge, York.

Brother to the fourth earl of Harewood, Lascelles ‘always identified with rural pursuits, lived for the most part in Yorkshire, and entered on the career of an English country gentleman’, which was only briefly interrupted by his uneventful service as Conservative MP for Northallerton.1Baily’s Magazine of Sport and Pastimes (1874), xxv. 187. Like his father, he joined the army, but after eight years’ service in the Grenadier Guards – during which he acted as aide-de-camp to the Governor General of Canada, and was nursed by the wife of the mayor of Philadelphia when taken ill on a visit there – he sold his commission and retired in August 1850.2HP Commons, 1820-32: ‘Lascelles, Hon. Henry’; Freeman’s Journal, 6 Jan. 1847; Leeds Mercury, 9 Oct. 1847. Having married the daughter of a Scottish laird and West India planter, his Continental honeymoon was cut short when his father suffered a hunting accident in January 1857, dying the following month from its effects.3Morning Chronicle, 29 Jan. 1857. His father-in-law died in October 1857, leaving £20,000 to his wife, Jessie.4HP Commons, 1820-32: ‘Malcolm, Neill’.

In that same year, Lascelles made his first attempt to enter Parliament on the family interest at Northallerton, where several family members, including his father, grandfather and uncle, had served as MP prior to 1832. His recollection that he had appeared ‘almost a stranger’ suggests that he had little personal acquaintance with the borough, and he lost out to the incumbent Liberal MP, William Battie Wrightson (backed by the rival Peirse interest), by just three votes.5Leeds Mercury, 10 May 1866. His brother-in-law, Charles Henry Mills, stood in 1859 and 1865, succeeding on his second attempt, only to be unseated on petition for bribery. At the ensuing by-election, 11 May 1866, Lascelles acceded to a requisition to stand, assisted on his canvass by Mills.6Leeds Mercury, 8 May 1866, 10 May 1866. He faced criticism from Wrightson at the nomination for ‘the influence and action which had been brought to bear in the borough’ by his family. Given Lascelles’ passion for equestrianism, it was fitting that his proposer recommended him as ‘a very safe horse, free from vice, and sound in wind and limb’. On the hustings, he emphasised his support for Derby and deprecated the Liberal ministry’s reform bill, declaring that had he been in the House, he would have backed the Liberal Earl Grosvernor’s amendment that the franchise question should not be discussed until the government’s entire reform scheme was presented. While not opposed to ‘a certain lowering of the franchise’ in boroughs and counties, he wanted to avoid existing electors being swamped.7Leeds Mercury, 10 May 1866. His particular concern was Northallerton’s future (it being one of the smallest English boroughs, with a population of 4,755 in 18618PP 1866 (259), lvii. 583.), especially the proposal that it be ‘tacked… on to the Earl of Zetland’s pocket borough of Richmond’, which he opposed.9The Times, 10 May 1866. Appealing to the agricultural interest, he criticised the government’s inadequate relief provisions in response to the cattle disease outbreak and its refusal to repeal the malt tax. He also attacked the ‘disreputable scrapes’ which the ministry had got into over foreign affairs, endorsing Derby’s attack on their ‘policy of “meddle and muddle”’.10Leeds Mercury, 10 May 1866.

Victorious at this by-election, Lascelles was present at Westminster less than a week later, loyally following Disraeli into the division lobby on the Irish land bill and the customs and inland revenue bill, 17 May 1866, as he did more or less consistently throughout his brief stint in the Commons. Judging from the division lists, he was not a particularly assiduous attender, arriving late and leaving early in both the 1867 and 1868 sessions. Concern for Northallerton’s fate meant that he took a particular interest in proceedings on the 1867 reform bill, and he naturally divided against the disenfranchisement of boroughs with a population of less than 5,000, 3 June 1867. That month he wrote to the Conservative chief whip, Colonel Taylor, to urge that Northallerton be extended to include surrounding villages, but that Bedale, where the rival Peirse interest held sway, remain outside the borough. (In the event, the boundary commissioners recommended no alteration in the boundaries.)11F.B. Smith, The making of the second reform bill (1966), 221-2. On the rare occasions when Lascelles did not vote with Disraeli, it was prompted by his desire to guarantee Northallerton’s survival, such as his support for a motion that increased representation for Scotland should not be at the expense of England and Ireland, 25 May 1868. He rarely voted on questions other than reform, although he did divide against extending the tests abolition (Oxford) bill to Cambridge, 10 Apr. 1867, and against the second reading of the Irish church bill, 22 May 1868. (An Anglican, he served as a vice-president of the York church congress in 1866, and as a member of the Central Committee of the York Diocesan Church Extension Society in later life.12Annual report of the York Church Congress, 1866 (1866), pg.xi; Leeds Mercury, 24 Apr. 1890.) Not surprisingly, given his background, he opposed a motion stating that ‘the system of purchasing Commissions in the Army tends greatly to diminish the efficiency of our Military Force’, 30 Apr. 1867. A silent member, his committee service appears to have been limited to one day’s attendance on a private bill committee.13PP 1866 (0.108), lvi. 598.

Lascelles did not seek re-election in 1868, returning with enthusiasm to his sporting pursuits, notably horse racing – he served as steward at both the York and Richmond races14Northern Echo, 9 Sept. 1875, 14 May 1890. – but also deer-stalking and fox-hunting.15A.E. Gathorne-Hardy, Autumns in Argyllshire with rod and gun (1900), 10; Baily’s Magazine of Sport and Pastimes (1874), xxv. 187. He was master of the York and Ainsty Hunt in 1872, when it was commented that he was ‘a neat rider, and well turned out, generally on a thoroughbred’.16Pall Mall Gazette, 24 Feb. 1872; Baily’s magazine of sport and pastimes (1872), xxi. 10. He was a member of the Yorkshire Fishery Board.17Leeds Mercury, 17 Jan. 1890. He died in October 1892, survived by his wife and his only surviving daughter, Marion.