PAKENHAM, Edward William (1819-1854), of Langford Lodge, Crumlin, co. Antrim of 36 St. James’s Street, London, Mdx.

A nephew of Thomas Pakenham, 2^nd earl of Longford, Pakenham was one of nine children and belonged to a celebrated military family. His father had distinguished himself in the Peninsula campaign and was made an aide-de-camp to the king in 1825. A brother-in-law of the 1^st duke of Wellington, he sat for Westmeath on his brother’s interest, 1808-26, but lost his seat after becoming a convert to Catholic relief.1HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 711; HP Commons, 1820-1832, vi. 619-20; H.M. Chichester, rev. J. Falkner, ‘Pakenham, Sir Hercules Robert’, Oxford DNB, xlii. 423. He was appointed commander-in-chief of the south-western district in 1843. Pakenham’s uncle, Major-General Sir Edward Pakenham (1778-1815), commanded the 3^rd division in the Peninsula and was killed whilst commanding the British forces at the battle of New Orleans.2H.M. Chichester, rev. R.T. Stearn, ‘Pakenham, Sir Edward Michael’, Oxf. DNB, xlii. 422-3; Gent. Mag. (1850) i. 532. Pakenham himself joined the Grenadier Guards on 12 January 1838 and served as aide-de-camp to his father from August 1839.3The Era, 18 Aug. 1839.

On his father’s sudden death in March 1850, Pakenham inherited a large estate in county Antrim.4The estate as held by his younger brother, the Rev. Arthur Pakenham, in 1883 consisted of 14,629 acres at an annual valuation of £15,601: J. Bateman, The Great Landowners of Great Britain (4th edn., 1883), 350. He was brother-in-law to Sir Edmund Samuel Hayes, MP for Donegal, 1831-60, and came forward for county Antrim at the 1852 general election upon the retirement of one of the sitting members, as the nominee of the marquis of Hertford.5Morning Post, 14 May 1852; Morning Chronicle, 24 May 1852. A supporter of Lord Derby, Pakenham was eager to see relief given to the landed interest but was not ‘prepared to vote for the re-imposition of a Duty on Foreign Grain’. He held that free trade, subject to the concession of reciprocity by foreign countries and a suitable ‘re-adjustment of taxation’, would benefit ‘all classes’. He opposed ‘the pernicious doctrines of the Tenant League’, but recognised the benefits of ‘Ulster custom’, under which tenants who made ‘bona fide improvement’ to their farms could ‘enjoy the full benefit of them’. He was, however, opposed to any compulsory valuation of rent, and argued that ‘a legislative enactment’ would not secure tenant-right to the extent that was it was then being practised in much of Ulster. He also wished to see the system of national education modified so as to remove the objections ‘entertained to it by many both of the clergy and laity’.6Belfast News-letter, 17 May, 23, 25 July 1852. He was returned unopposed.

Pakenham does not appear to have sat on any select committees or brought forward any bills. A silent member, he attended the Commons intermittently, participating in 50 of 257 divisions in the 1852-53 session.7Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853. When present he voted consistently with the Conservatives, dividing against Villiers’s free trade motion, 26 Nov. 1852, and apparently abstaining on Palmerston’s subsequent amendment. He supported Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec., and voted against the admission of Jews to parliament, 24 Feb., 11 Mar. 1853. He opposed the government over the Canadian clergy reserves bill, 11 Apr., and backed Isaac Butt’s cross-party effort to secure the future of Kilmainham Royal Hospital, 12 Apr. He divided against Gladstone’s budget, 2 May, and supported the Irish crime and outrage bill, 25 July.

After voting in just one division of the 1854 session, (against the second reading of the Kingston-upon-Thames improvement bill, 16 Feb.), Pakenham responded to his ‘his country’s call’, and became one of nine Irish Conservative MPs to fight in the Crimean War.8Belfast News-letter, 24 Nov. 1854; A. Shields, The Irish Conservative Party 1852-1868 (2007), 5. After intimating that he was prepared to resign his seat ‘if his services could not be dispensed with till after his return from the war’, he proceeded with the 3^rd battalion of his regiment to Turkey, 22 Feb. 1854. He served through the initial stages of the campaign, being ‘in the thick of the fire’ during the battle of the Alma, 20 Sept., for which he was mentioned in Lord Raglan’s despatches.9Belfast News-letter, 24 Nov. 1854; Morning Post, 11 Oct. 1854. Although he ‘escaped unhurt, one of his epaulettes was torn off by a piece of grape’: The Times, 30 Oct. 1854. He was mortally wounded at the battle of Inkerman, 5 Nov. 1854, and died in his tent that night. He was buried on Cathcart’s Hill overlooking Sebastopol and a memorial plaque was later erected at the Royal Military Chapel, Wellington Barracks, London.10Morning Post, 23 Nov. 1852; http://glosters.tripod.com/criminf.htm. Pakenham was one of 104 officers and men of the regiment killed that day. A fellow officer, Sir Charles Russell, later MP for Berkshire, 1865-8, won the VC in the same engagement while Lt.-Col. James Hunter Blair of the Scots Fusilier Guards, MP for Ayrshire, 1852-4, also perished in the battle. He was succeeded by his brother, Rev. Arthur Hercules Pakenham, and replaced in the county seat of Antrim by another brother, Thomas, who sat for the constituency until 1865.11Thomas had been wounded at the battle of the Alma. Another brother, Robert, was killed in action at Lucknow, 25 Sept. 1857: The Times, 29 Dec. 1854; Royal Cornwall Gazette, 29 Jan. 1858.