MASTER, Thomas William Chester (1815-1899), of Knole Park, Almondsbury, Glos. of 82 Mount Street, London, Mdx.

Master was from ‘an old Gloucestershire gentry family’ which had originated in Kent. The eldest of nine children of a retired army officer and a gentleman usher of the privy chamber, 1808-68, who had inherited an estate of more than 7,000 acres at Knole Park, near Bristol, from his uncle in 1823,1HP Commons, 1754-90, iii. 118; Bristol Mercury, 28 Nov. 1868; Burke’s Commoners (1833), i. 657. he was lineally descended from Richard Master, physician of the chamber to Elizabeth I, who himself claimed descent from Henry VII.2M. Satchell, ‘Master, Richard’, Oxford DNB, xxxvii. 246-7. The family, which owned substantial property within the town of Cirencester, possessed great influence in the borough, and since the 1580s had frequently represented it in parliament.3HP Commons, 1754-90, ii. 173. Master was a cousin of Lord Shelborne and the earl of Lichfield.4The Assembled Commons; or, parliamentary biographer (1838), 156; R.B. Mosse, The Parliamentary Guide (1837), 194.

His paternal uncles having represented Cirencester, 1785-92, and Gloucestershire, 1784-96, Master was returned unopposed for the staunchly Conservative borough at the 1837 general election as the successor to Lord Robert Edward Somerset.5HP Commons, 1754-90, iii. 117-8; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 567-8; Standard, 8 July 1837; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 13 July 1837. The seat had been contested only once since 1818. Of ‘strictly Conservative’ opinions, Master voted consistently with his party.6Dod MS, iii. 783. He supported Peel’s resolution on the civil pensions list, 8 Dec. 1837, and Lord Sandon’s motion blaming government policy for the Canadian rebellion, 7 Mar. 1838. He voted for the third reading of the Irish poor law bill, 30 Apr. 1838, opposed the government resolution on Irish tithe appropriation, 15 May, and supported Peel’s amendment for a £10 franchise for Irish municipal corporations, 11 June. He also voted to overturn the motion that slave apprenticeships should ‘immediately cease’, 28 May. A staunch protectionist, he voted against Villiers’s motion that evidence be heard complaining of the corn laws, 19 Feb. 1839, (and opposed similar motions, 16 Feb., 14 Mar. 1842, 12, 15 May 1843). He divided against Shaw Lefevre as speaker, 27 May 1839, and opposed the third reading of the Jamaica government bill, 10 June. Absent from the motion of no confidence in the Whig ministry, 31 Jan. 1840, he paired in favour of the motion of censure on government policy towards China, 9 Apr. 1840. He joined anti-free traders in voting for Lord Sandon’s motion condemning the reduction of duty on foreign sugar, 18 May 1841, and backed Peel’s motion of no confidence in the government, 4 June.

At the 1841 general election Master was re-elected unopposed. He supported the amendment to the address which brought down the Whig ministry, 27 Aug. 1841. Master is not known to have spoken in the House, sat on any select committees, or introduced any bills, but proved a reliable supporter of Peel’s ministry, voting for the corn importation bill, which introduced the sliding scale, 9 Mar., 7 Apr. 1842, and dividing consistently in favour of the re-introduction of income tax that session. He opposed a reduction of sugar duties, 3 June, (later dividing against a uniform duty, 3 June 1844), and supported the poor law amendment bill, 27 June 1842. He did, however, divide against Peel over the continuation of the Maynooth grant, 7 Apr. 1843. He opposed motions for committees of the House to consider Irish grievances, 12 July, and investigate the state of that country, 23 Feb. 1844. He was unsympathetic towards factory reform and in the divisions on the factory regulation bill, voted for night to be defined as 8pm to 6pm rather than 6pm to 6am, 18 Mar., and paired in favour of a 12 hour day, 22 Mar. He opposed the motion that there should be no legislative interference in the number of hours of work for adults, 3 May, but voted in favour of allowing 8 year olds to be employed in factories, 6 May. He supported the Dissenters’ chapels bill, 6 June, and paired against a committee of the House to consider Irish Church temporalities, 12 June 1844.7Morning Post, 17 June 1844.

Believing that he could no longer discharge his parliamentary duties ‘in a satisfactory manner … except at a personal inconvenience and sacrifice’, Masters ‘somewhat startled’ his constituents by taking the Chiltern Hundreds, 26 July 1844.8Morning Post, 29 July 1844; CJ, xcix. 546. He had signalled his intention to resign a fortnight earlier so that a suitable replacement might be secured: Morning Post, 30 July, 3 Aug. 1844. His political connection to the borough of Cirencester having ceased, Masters took no further part in politics. He did, however, assume a prominent role in local public affairs. He served as high sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1878, and was for many years chairman of the Cirencester bench of magistrates and honorary secretary of the East Gloucestershire Friendly Society.9Standard, 1 Feb. 1899; Bristol Mercury, 4 Feb. 1899. He had married into the family of a Herefordshire landowner and former West India proprietor in April 1840,10Standard, 10 Apr. 1840. See S. Seymour, S. Daniels, and C. Watkis, ‘Estate and Empire: Sir George Cornewall’s management of Moccas, Herefordshire and La Taste Grenada 1771-1819’, Journal of Historical Geography, 24:3 (1998), 313-51. and in November 1868 inherited his father’s estates, which by then included the Abbey of Cirencester, which had been bequeathed to his father in 1863.11Assembled Commons, 156.

Master died at Knole Park in January 1899 and was buried with ‘the utmost simplicity’ at Almondsbury Church, 3 Feb. 1899.12Bristol Mercury, 4 Feb. 1899. He was succeeded by his eldest son and namesake (1841-1914), to whom he had conveyed his estate some years earlier, who sat as Conservative MP for Cirencester, 1878-1885, and the Cirencester division of Gloucestershire, 1892-3.13Standard, 1 Feb. 1899; Stenton & Lee, Who’s Who of British MPs, ii. 244-5. A collection of family papers is held in the Gloucestershire Archives.14See Collection D674b.