IRTON, Samuel (1796-1866), of 35 Piccadilly, London and Irton Hall, Santon, Cumberland

Irton, who had ‘always held Conservative principles’, was lord of the manor of Irton, in the Bootle district of Cumberland.1Carlisle Journal, 5 Aug. 1837. Part of a family ‘of very great antiquity’, who had first settled in the region at the time of the Conquest, his father, Edmund, claimed to be a direct descendant of Bartram D’Yrton, who had lived during the reign of Henry I.2S. Taylor, ‘The Irtons, of Irton Hall’, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, xli (1941), 72-122.

In March 1833 Irton was brought forward by the Lowther interest to stand for the vacancy at Cumberland West following the decision of viscount Lowther, who had been returned for both Cumberland West and Westmorland at the 1832 general election, to sit for the latter. Claiming that the ‘landed interest was not fairly represented in the House of Commons’, he described the corn laws as ‘beneficial to every class’, and denounced free trade, arguing that the policy ‘had thrown a great portion of our trade into the hands of foreigners’.3Carlisle Journal, 23 Mar. 1833. At the nomination, his insistence that he stood as an ‘independent’ was met with derisive laughter, but backed by the formidable Lowther interest, he defeated his Liberal opponent.4Morning Post, 23 Mar. 1833.

In his first Parliament Irton was silent but ‘indefatigable in his attendance’.5Morning Chronicle, 21 Jan. 1835. Implacably opposed to the extension of religious liberties, he voted against the removal of Jewish disabilities, 22 May 1833.6Parliamentary test book (1835), 89. He was in the minorities for Matthias Attwood’s motion for currency reform, 24 Apr. 1833, and for the repeal of the malt tax, 27 Feb. 1834. He backed Lord Althorp’s amendment on scrutiny of the pension list, 18 Feb. 1834, and supported his motion to replace church rates with a land tax, 21 Apr. 1834. He voted against shorter parliaments, 15 May 1834.

At the 1835 general election Irton declared that he was ‘prepared to reform so far as is consistent with the constitution, and with the balance of kings, lords and commons’, and was comfortably returned in second place.7Ibid., 89. He backed Peel’s ministry on the speakership, 19 Feb. 1835, and the address, 26 Feb. 1835, and voted against Irish church appropriation, 2 Apr., the issue which brought the ministry down. Thereafter, he consistently opposed the Melbourne administration’s Irish policy, pairing off against Irish municipal reform, 28 Mar. 1836, and voting against the Irish tithes and church bill, 3 June 1836. He remained, though, largely silent in debate. In his only two known interventions prior to his first retirement in 1847, he praised the ‘high character’ of the Penrith magistrates during a debate on legislation to prevent cruelty to animals, 9 Mar. 1835, and unsuccessfully moved for a new writ to be issued for Stafford, 18 May 1835. He also served on select committees on accidents in mines, privileges, and the freemen of cities and boroughs in England and Wales.8PP 1835 (603), v. 2; PP 1837 (45), xiii. 207; PP 1840 (465), xi. 13.

At the 1837 general election Irton declared that he would ‘strenuously oppose every attempt to alter’ the 1832 Reform Act.9Carlisle Journal, 5 Aug. 1837. Re-elected without opposition, he followed Peel into the division lobby on most major issues, including for the motion blaming Melbourne’s ministry for the Canadian rebellion, 7 Mar. 1838, and against the government’s Irish tithes bill, 15 May 1838. He voted for Peel’s motion of no confidence, 4 June 1841, and at the subsequent general election he maintained his opposition to the repeal of the corn laws, though he backed Peel’s sliding scale on corn duties.10Carlisle Journal, 17 July 1841. Following his unopposed return, Irton remained unwaveringly loyal to Peel’s ministry, voting against Lord John Russell’s motion not to reintroduce income tax, 13 Apr. 1842, and against his motion to consider the state of Ireland, 23 Feb. 1844. However, he opposed the premier and voted against corn law repeal, 15 May 1846.

Irton retired at the dissolution in 1847 to make way for Henry Lowther, the nephew of the second earl of Lonsdale. However, following the retirement of Edward Stanley in 1852, Irton was brought back into the fray on the Lowther interest. The Carlisle Journal ridiculed this decision, stating that the man ‘who has been rusticating about Irton woods since his retirement’ was only brought forward to replace Stanley because ‘there is not another young fledging of the Lowther family ready to succeed him’.11Carlisle Journal, 21 May 1852. Nevertheless, following a brief canvass, in which he resurrected his opposition to free trade and insisted that he would ‘use every effort to maintain our Protestant institutions’, he was elected without a contest.12Morning Post, 15 July 1852.

Irton’s return to Parliament was marked by a greater frequency of contributions to debate than had hitherto been the case, although they were generally short, and critical rather than constructive in nature. As a magistrate and deputy lieutenant for Cumberland who was ‘a regular attender at Quarter sessions’, Irton’s interventions reflected his support for justices of the peace in their administration of county affairs.13Carlisle Journal, 20 July 1866. He criticised the militia bill for taking ‘all power out of the hands of the magistrates’, 7 July 1854, and increasing the financial burden on the county rates, 27 July 1854. He also spoke in opposition to the county rates and expenditure bill, as it had ‘never been brought under the attention of the justices at Quarter sessions’, 16 Mar. 1853. He made a number of short interventions in the debates on the bribery bill, opposing the principle that people paid for various forms of electioneering should not be allowed to vote, 20 and 21 July 1854, and, on the grounds of its expense, spoke out against the Palmerston ministry’s education (Scotland) bill, 14 June, 9 July 1855. He sat on the 1854-55 select committee on the public health bill and nuisances removal amendment bill, and proved an diligent questioner.14PP 1854-55 (244), xiii. 413. However, despite a notable increase in his contributions to debate, his attendance was poor compared to the assiduousness with which he began his Parliamentary career.15In 1853 he was present for only 46 out of 257 divisions: Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853. In 1856 he voted in 41 out of 198 divisions: J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions of the House of Commons during the last session of Parliament (1857), 4. On the occasions that he was present in the division lobby, he remained loyal to the Conservatives. He was in the minority for Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1852, and voted against the ballot, 14 June 1853, the abolition of church rates, 16 May 1855, and the Maynooth grant, 15 Apr. 1856. The latter stages of Irton’s parliamentary career were coloured by the assumption that he was merely a stopgap until a candidate of greater landed wealth materialised, and at the 1857 general election he stood down to make way for General Henry Wyndham, the second illegitimate son of George O’Brien Wyndham, the third earl of Egremont.

Following his retirement, Irton rarely took part ‘in the management of county business’.16Carlisle Journal, 20 July 1866. He died without issue at Irton Hall in July 1866, leaving effects valued at under £3,000.17England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, Index of wills and administration, 1861-1941, 18 Sept. 1866. His estates passed to his only sister, Anne Frances, widow of Joseph Gunson of Ingwell.18Gent. Mag. (1866), ii. 279. Following his death, his wife, Eleanor, was reported to have burnt all the documents, maps and papers relating to the Irtons and their possessions, believing that ‘as there were no more to bear the name of Irton, these relics could be of no interest to anyone’.19S. Taylor, ‘The Irtons, of Irton Hall’, 72.