CARNEGIE, Hon. Swynfen Thomas (1813-1879), of Spot, Staffordshire; Longwood, Hampshire

Appointed a lord of the treasury in March 1846, Carnegie was one of the Conservative MPs who supported Peel’s repeal of the corn laws in ensuing months. A serving naval officer and contributor to debates on naval affairs, Carnegie, who had been in the service since 1826, had an impressive military pedigree. His grandfather George, 6th earl of Northesk, and his father, William, 7th earl, had both been admirals, the latter serving at the battle of Trafalgar, while his mother was the niece of another famous sailor, John Jervis, 1st earl of St. Vincent (1735-1823). The youngest son of the 7th earl, Carnegie had entered the royal navy when he was thirteen and served in operations connected with the civil war in Spain, 1833-38, for which he was later awarded a knighthood of the Order of St. Fernando.1The Times, 5 Dec. 1879; F. Boase, Modern English biography (1892), i. 552-3.

Connected to Staffordshire through his uncle Lord St. Vincent, Carnegie was returned as a Conservative for its most venal borough at the 1841 general election.2Staffordshire Advertiser, 12 June 1841. During the campaign Carnegie expressed his disapproval of the ‘wild and visionary schemes’ of the Whigs and the ‘harsh and stringent clauses’ of the new poor law. However, he was not against a modification of the corn laws compatible with due protection to agriculture.3Staffordshire Advertiser, 19 June 1841. He also criticised Palmerston’s policy of ‘little wars everywhere; little in their commencement; little in their policy; nothing, in their results, but an emptying of the exchequer’.4Ibid. A lax attender, in his maiden speech on the distress of the country, 24 Sept. 1841, Carnegie complained that free trade MPs were proposing a policy they had no chance of carrying and were inciting ‘the passions of the working men’.5Hansard, 24 Sept. 1841, vol. 59, cc. 796-7. In 1842 he lent support to Peel’s revised corn law and reintroduction of income tax, resisting Sir Charles Napier’s amendment to exempt army and navy officers from the impost as insulting, 29 Apr. 1842.6Hansard, 29 Apr. 1842, vol. 62, cc. 1314-15. In the same session, he backed the Peel’s admiralty appointments, arguing that ‘they did not did not want a politician for a first lord: there was no politics under the pennant’.7Hansard, 4 Mar. 1842, vol. 61, c. 113. Despite his election orations, Carnegie was generally absent from divisions for the repeal or revision of the new poor law. In August 1842 he took command of the Orestes stationed in North America and the West Indies and from February 1844, of the Devastation, based in the Mediterranean.8Illustrated London News, xx (1852), 172. This meant Carnegie was absent from parliamentary duty for much of the intervening period. However, he was present to oppose a ten hour day for factory workers and Villiers’ anti-corn law motion in 1844, and the following year he backed the government’s Maynooth college bill, marking him out as a loyal follower of Peel.

At the March 1846 by-election occasioned by Peel’s appointing him a lord of the treasury, Carnegie offered an enthusiastic defence of the premier’s repeal of the corn laws. He declared himself ‘not a friend to protection in general’, which ‘breeds laziness’ among farmers. The success of the 1842 revision of the corn laws had convinced him that a ‘much larger scheme’ could be safely adopted. Carnegie would ‘leave no stone unturned to ensure the passing of the government measure’ and promised to ‘be absent from no division’.9The Times, 13 Mar. 1846. Although he was criticised for ‘being afloat’ for much of the previous session he was easily returned against a token protectionist.10Ibid. He repeatedly divided in favour of Peel’s corn importation bill, but remained an opponent of state regulation of textile or lace factories proposed by paternalist Conservatives and Radicals.

Relegated into third place at Stafford in the 1847 general election, Carnegie attributed his defeat to his refusal to bribe.11Swynfen Thomas Carnegie to Sir Robert Peel, 1 Aug. 1847, Add. 40599, f. 116. At the nomination he had declared himself a ‘disciple of Sir Robert Peel’, but as the former premier ‘was not now the leader of a party’ Carnegie ‘did not belong to any party’.12Staffordshire Advertiser, 24 July 1847. He petitioned against the result, but in his absence the petition was withdrawn without his knowledge.13Illustrated London News, xx (1852), 172. Carnegie became a director of the London and North Western Railway Company in 1849.14Ibid. He declined an invitation to stand for Stafford at the 1852 general election as he was in ‘active service afloat’ and that year he was appointed superintendent of steam naval organisation at Sheerness.15Staffordshire Advertiser, 1 May 1852. He served in the Black Sea during the Crimean War, 1854-6, and was made a Companion of the Order of Bath in 1855. Carnegie reappeared in Stafford at the 1857 general election, promising an ‘independent support’ to Palmerston, but later withdrew.16Staffordshire Advertiser, 21 Mar. 1857. He was appointed a lord of the admiralty in 1859 by Lord Derby, and served as controller-general of the coast guard in 1863, the same year he was elevated to rear-admiral. Made a vice-admiral in 1870, he was placed on the retired list as an admiral in 1876.17Morning Post, 6 Dec. 1879; Boase, Modern English biography, i. 552-3. He died childless in 1879.