IRELAND, Thomas James (1792-1863), of Ousden Hall, Newmarket, Suff.

Ireland was a prosperous and progressive Suffolk landowner with uncompromising Protestant opinions. That his tenure in parliament was so short was in large part due to his having resolved to win a seat by whatever means available to him, his apparent lack of scruple leading to his political eclipse at the hands of an election committee.1Daily News, 30 Oct. 1849.iapoi in North Canterburynryrt’ in

Ireland was born in London, his family presumed to have descended from a younger son of ‘the ancient house of Ireland of Hale Hall’ in Lancashire. He was the only child of Thomas Ireland, a solicitor who was called to Staple Inn in 1786, and who served as the inn’s principal from 1829-33.2E. Williams, Staple Inn: customs house, wool court, and Inn of Chancery (London, 1906), 150, 177. Ireland attended Cambridge, where he was junior optime in 1814, and gained the declamation prizes of his college in two successive years.3Burke’s Landed Gentry (1848), 634-5; Bury & Norwich Post, 3 Feb. 1841; Dod’s parliamentary companion (1848), 191. In February 1829 he married the daughter of Sir William Earle Welby, a Lincolnshire Tory grandee who was Conservative MP for Grantham, 1807-20. Shortly after the wedding, he travelled around Italy, compiling and publishing a detailed journal that contained his observations on the country’s history and architecture.4Morning Post, 18 Feb. 1829; T.J. Ireland, Extracts from a journal during a tour in Italy in 1829 and 1830 (1836): Bodleian MSS, Toynbee 3533. On returning to London he trained for the bar, being admitted to Gray’s Inn in 1832 at the unusually old age of 40. A year later he was admitted to Staple Inn to train as a solicitor.

In 1834 Ireland was bequeathed ‘a considerable landed property’ at Ousden, Suffolk, by his uncle, and he also held land in Cambridgeshire.5Ousden Hall Estate Records, Suffolk Record Office, Ref. 1429; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 9 Sept. 1847. In 1883 the estate comprised 2,198 acres at an annual rental of £3,055: J. Bateman, The Great Landowners of Great Britain (4th edn., 1883), 368. He was appointed a magistrate of Suffolk in January 1835 and a county sheriff in 1845, and was a visitor of the county lunatic asylum.6Bury & Norwich Post, 21 Jan. 1835; The English Gentleman, 15 Nov. 1845; Ipswich Journal, 1 July 1843.

Ireland had parliamentary aspirations, and prior to the 1847 general election is said to have sought an introduction to a seat among the country’s ‘low agents’ before he was eventually adopted by the Conservatives of Bewdley.7Daily News, 30 Oct. 1849. A strong believer in the fundamental connection between church and state, he declared in his address that he was opposed to ‘any further concessions to the claims of the Roman Catholics’, and ‘strongly averse to the endowment of the Romish Priesthood out of … public sources’.8Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 July 1847. At the hustings he promised to better the condition of working people, and subsequently claimed to have established around 55 allotments for the labourers on his own estate. He was also in favour of an extended system of education, but opposed the endowment of any school where ‘provision was not made for Protestant teachers’. He also advocated measures to ameliorate the poor laws, such as the ‘Borthwick clause’, which might conduce ‘to their humanity and justice’.9The Era, 1 Aug. 1847; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 9 Sept. 1847; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1848), 191. The MP for Evesham, Peter Borthwick, had recently attempted to prevent the separation of aged couples in workhouses. Having been ‘liberal in the expenditure of his money’, he declared his ‘fixed determination’ to proceed to a poll and was returned against the Liberal patron of the borough by a margin of two votes.10T.C. Turberville, Worcestershire in the Nineteenth Century (1852), 49; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 July 1847. In the opinion of the Daily News, however, no election ‘ever was conducted in a more unprincipled and wicked manner’ and the result was contested on petition.11Daily News, 30 Oct. 1849.

In the meantime Ireland questioned the wisdom of withdrawing protection from both agriculture and ‘native industry’, telling local Conservatives that he doubted whether the erstwhile followers of Sir Robert Peel ‘would be content to be dragged … at his chariot wheels, and linked under his yoke’.12Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 9 Sept. 1847. He also joined the ultra-Protestant National Club.13Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1848), 191. Ireland is not, however, listed as a member of the club in J. Wolffe, The Protestant Crusade in Great Britain (1991), 212-3. A silent member, he divided against motions for select committees to inquire into the causes of recent commercial distress, 3 Dec. 1847, and to consider the effects of the dissolution of the Irish parliament, 7 Dec., and voted in favour of the second reading of the Irish crime and outrage bill, 9 Dec. Having declared to the electors of Bewdley that a ‘great battle of the Constitution’ would be fought in the ensuing parliament,14Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 July 1847. he voted on matters close to the National Club’s interests, dividing against the second reading of the Catholic relief bill, 8 Dec., and backing opposition to Lord John Russell’s motion to remove Jewish disabilities, 17 Dec. 1847. Thereafter he appears to have attended the Commons only intermittently, opposing the second reading of the Jewish disabilities bill, 11 Feb. 1848, dividing against Edward Horsman’s motion to relieve income tax on professional and ‘precarious’ incomes, 3 Mar., and voting with the minority in favour of the Severn navigation improvement commissioners bill, 6 Mar. 1848.

Ireland was unseated on 10 Mar. 1848 and the Bewdley election was subsequently declared void on grounds of treating and bribery by the agents of both candidates.15Although Ireland was unseated on 10 March, the decision was not announced to the Commons until the counter-petition against his opponent was decided on 20 March: Morning Chronicle, 11 Mar. 1848; CJ, ciii. 342; PP 1847-48 (194) x. 207. His application for costs was swiftly declined, and faced with heavy unpaid bills he returned to Suffolk, where he was appointed high sheriff in 1849.16Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 23 Mar. 1848; Daily News, 30 Oct. 1849; The Times, 3 Mar. 1849. In the following year he presided over a county meeting at Stowmarket in favour of the protection of native industry, and offered, but was not selected, as a candidate for Cambridgeshire at the 1852 general election.17Ipswich Journal, 9 Feb. 1850; The Times, 29 Mar. 1852. Thereafter he does not appear to have taken any part in politics.

Ireland died at his residence in Upper Harley Street, London, in July 1863, when his personal estate was sworn at £45,000.18Morning Post, 3 July 1863; Nat. Probate Calendar, Index of Wills, 1858-1966 (3 Sept. 1863). He is commemorated by a gothic memorial (by J.E. Thomas of London) in St. Peter’s Church, Ousden: www.bansfieldbenefice.org.uk/ousden/history/memorials.html. His only son Thomas James Ireland (1829-43) had died after a ‘long and severe illness’ in April 1843, and he left Ousden Hall and his houses at Cheltenham and London to his widow (who died in 1888), and divided the residue of his property between his five daughters.19Morning Post, 18 Dec. 1829; Bury & Norwich Post, 19 Apr. 1843; Hampshire Advertiser, 26 Sept. 1863. The Ousden estate was sold by his executors to the Praed family in 1864: Ousden Hall Estate Records.