STONOR, Thomas (1797-1881), of Stonor Park, nr. Henley-on-Thames, Oxon and 96 Piccadilly, Mdx.

Heir to the abeyant barony of Camoys and the Oxfordshire estates of a prominent family of recusants, who had retained ‘their property through all the persecutions and proscriptions attendant upon the Reformation’, Stonor defied all odds to become Oxford’s first Catholic MP, making him one of just five Catholic MPs to be returned for an English constituency at the 1832 general election. Given the well-rehearsed antipathy of Oxford (and especially its University) towards Catholic emancipation in 1829, this was an ‘extraordinary circumstance’, as one commentator noted.1Morning Post, 18 Jan.; Morning Chronicle, 4 Feb. 1833; HP Commons, 1820-32, ii. 828. Stonor barely had time to take his seat, however, before being unseated on petition for venal practices that were endemic in the city.

A deputy lieutenant for Oxfordshire in 1831, Stonor had taken a prominent part in the campaign for the Grey ministry’s reform bill that year, chairing local committees and meetings in support of pro-reform candidates, including those held at Henley for the county contender Richard Weyland, and seconding the nomination of the second reform candidate George Granville Harcourt at the Oxfordshire 1831 general election. Speaking at the ensuing dinner held to celebrate their victory, he declared that ‘from the earliest publication of the reform bill, he had been an unqualified approver of it’.2Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 2, 30 Apr. 7 May, 4 June; Oxford University, City, and County Herald, 9, 16, 23 Apr. 1831. His succession to his father’s estates that October made him an obvious choice for the additional county seat created by the reform bill, but although his claims were widely mooted, on 5 July 1832 he surprised everyone by declaring his candidacy for Oxford city.3Morning Chronicle, 9 July; Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 14 July 1832. He was under no illusions about his prospects, having been repeatedly warned of defeat, ‘while others went further, and declared me to be mad, to think of opposing myself to the opposing influence of the University, which must on this occasion be necessarily be exercised against me’.4Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 6 Oct. 1832.

Believing that Oxford’s electors were ‘more liberal than that’, however, he persisted against the city’s two incumbents, both moderate reformers, prompting a ‘huge contest’ in which the city’s notorious freemen were left in little doubt about his ‘affluence’ and long purse. In his addresses he outlined his support for a radical programme of reform, including the secret ballot, shorter parliaments, a property tax and the abolition of colonial slavery, but refused to be ‘pledged’ beyond promising to attend to ‘local interests’. After the sole Conservative candidate resigned in his favour, evidently out of personal malice towards the sitting Members, Stonor narrowly secured second place ahead of William Hughes Hughes in the poll.5Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 1, 15 Dec. 1832; Morning Chronicle, 4 Feb. 1833.

Speaking at his victory dinner, 28 Dec. 1832, Stonor rebutted Protestant fears that he would ‘confederate with the Irish demagogues in their diabolical endeavours to revolutionize the kingdom’ and looked forward to proving ‘that a Catholic was not necessarily an enemy to the establishment’.6Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 5, 12 Jan. 1833. In his only confirmed vote, he duly rallied behind the Whig ministers on the address, 8 Feb. 1833.7Morning Post, 11 Feb. 1833. He was also listed in their majority on the Irish coercion bill by the press, 7 Mar., but that day wrote to explain, ‘I did not vote’.8Morning Chronicle, 8 Mar. 1833. By then Stonor had been unseated by an election committee for bribery and treating, which disqualified him from offering again at the ensuing by-election.9Morning Post, 7 Mar.; The Times, 8 Mar. 1833.

Determined not to let Hughes Hughes walk over, Stonor, who had joined Brooks’s sponsored by the duke of Norfolk and John Fazakerley MP, 31 Mar. 1833, brought forward his brother-in-law Charles Towneley. An ultra reformer of ‘similar politics’, Towneley declared his opposition to the Irish coercion bill.10The Times, 19 Mar. 1833. Dogged by anti-Catholic sentiment, much of it whipped up by Hughes Hughes, Towneley was defeated in the ensuing poll. Undeterred, Stonor accepted an invitation to offer again at the 1835 general election, although it had ‘not been his intention’ to stand, and fought another unsuccessful campaign, noted for his outspoken attacks on the ‘reforming professions’ of ‘that masterpiece of imposture’ Sir Robert Peel (whose daughter his son later married), as well as Hughes Hughes, ‘the execration of all’.11Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 20, 24, 27 Dec. 1834, 3, 10, 24 Jan. 1835.

At the 1837 general election Stonor, who had served as high sheriff the previous year, transferred his attentions to the county. Faced with stiff Tory opposition from a newly formed Oxfordshire Conservative Association, he attempted to negotiate a deal to share the representation, believing that the Liberals were entitled to at least one of the three seats, but was unceremoniously rebuffed.12D. Eastwood, ‘Toryism, Reform and Political Culture in Oxfordshire, 1826-37’, Parliamentary History (1988), vii. 98-121, at 110. Amidst resurgent anti-Catholicism, including placards bearing slogans such as ‘Will Oxfordshire add another joint to O’Connell’s tail?’ and ‘No farmers’ friend can vote for Stonor, the Papist’, he was again defeated, after controversially insisting that polling continue for its maximum length, ‘that every Liberal might have the opportunity of registering his vote’.13Cited in Eastwood, ‘Oxfordshire’, 110-111. ‘Protestant feelings are triumphant in this county’, gloated the Tory Jackson’s Oxford Journal, adding its hope ‘that Mr. Stonor will never again attempt to force upon us those politics which Finsbury and the Tower Hamlets may tolerate’.14 Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 5 Aug. 1837.

Stonor’s elevation to the abeyant barony of Camoys in September 1839, a title which had remained dormant for almost 400 years, conveniently removed him from the field. His one-eighth and somewhat ‘fortunate’ claim to the title derived from his descent from Mary Biddulph, the co-heiress of the baronies of Camoys and Vaux, who had married his great-grandfather Thomas Stonor in 1732.15GEC, i. 509. His first known speech in the Lords, where he took his place, 17 Jan. 1840, related to religious provision for Catholics in the military, prisons and workhouses, 6 May 1842.16The Times, 18 Jan. 1840, 7 May 1842. As Lord Camoys he served as a Whig lord in waiting to Queen Victoria under the ministries of Russell, Aberdeen, Palmerston and Gladstone between 1846 and 1872.

On Stonor’s death in January 1881, the barony and family estates devolved upon his grandson Francis (1856-1897), another Liberal lord in waiting. Francis was the eldest son of Stonor’s second son Francis (1829-1881), a senior clerk in the House of Lords, who had died just eight days before, and his daughter-in-law Eliza Peel, the youngest daughter of the premier Sir Robert Peel. Stonor’s third son was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Trapezus Edmund Stonor (1831-1912). At least four of his nine daughters became nuns. Ephemera relating to Stonor’s electioneering and his household office remains in the family’s possession at Stonor Park.