CAVENDISH-SCOTT-BENTINCK, Lord Henry William (1804-1870), of 19 Cavendish Square, London; Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire and Tathwell Hall, Lincolnshire

Described by the 4^th duke of Newcastle as ‘a shy and silent man – but very clever’, Bentinck devoted his life to fox-hunting before entering Parliament in 1846 to support the protectionist cause, led by his elder brother, Lord George Bentinck, to whom he was close.1Unhappy reactionary: the diaries of the fourth duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, 1822-1850 (2003), ed. R.A. Gaunt, 143; J. Ridley, ‘Bentinck, Lord Henry William Cavendish-Scott- (1804-1870)’, Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com; B. Disraeli, Lord George Bentinck: a political biography (1852). The fourth son of the duke of Portland, who owned over 35,000 acres in Nottinghamshire, Bentinck’s branch of the family was noted for its eccentricity, and his eldest surviving brother, Lord John Bentinck, styled marquess of Titchfield from 1824, was a recluse.2D.J. Bradbury, Welbeck and the fifth duke of Portland (1989). After taking a second class degree in classics at Oxford in 1826, Bentinck immersed himself in the world of fox-hunting and became regarded as ‘the best brain ever given to hounds’.3Marchioness of Londonderry [E.H. Chaplin Vane-Tempest-Stewart], Henry Chaplin: a memoir (1926), 198. He was master of the Rufford hounds, 1834-36, and from 1842 to 1862, master of the Burton in Lincolnshire, where, prior to entering Parliament, he hunted six days a week, riding 30 miles from his home at Welbeck Abbey each day.4Ridley, ‘Bentinck, Lord Henry’.

In March 1846 Bentinck was brought forward ­by his father, with the support of the 4^th duke of Newcastle, as a protectionist candidate for the vacancy at Nottinghamshire North created by the death of the sitting member. With his brother, George, alongside Disraeli, leading the protectionist opposition to Peel over the corn laws, the timing of the by-election was critical, and his entrance into politics was praised by Disraeli, who gleefully wrote to his sister Sarah that ‘Lord Henry Bentinck is going to give up hunting and give himself up to politics to support me!’5Disraeli to Sarah Disraeli, 29 Jan. 1846: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1842-1847 (1989), ed. M.G. Wiebe, J.B. Conacher, J. Matthews, M.S. Millar, 216. Given that Bentinck had hitherto shown little interest in politics, expectations were far from high. On the eve of the nomination, Newcastle recorded in his diary that John Evelyn Denison (Bentinck’s brother-in-law and MP for Malton) had informed him that:

Not only had Ld Henry never in his life ever opened his lips to speak, but it so happens that he has never been in the way of hearing a speech from any other individual – so that he was utterly unacquainted with the conventional modes of addressing an assembled audience.6Unhappy reactionary, 144.

Despite such misgivings, Bentinck delivered an effective and belligerent speech at the nomination, accusing Peel of ‘general treachery and desertion’ and warning that the protectionists were ‘not dead beat yet’.7The Times, 2 Mar. 1846. Although the earl of Lincoln, who had just lost his seat at Nottinghamshire South, was nominated as a Peelite candidate, this was done without his consent.8Ibid., 3 Mar. 1846. Lincoln’s proposer subsequently issued an address asking the earl’s supporters to abstain, leaving Bentinck to be elected by an overwhelming majority.9Ibid.

Bentinck duly voted against corn law repeal, 27 Mar. 1846, 15 May 1846, and followed his brother into the division lobby against Peel’s protection of life (Ireland) bill, 25 June 1846. At the 1847 general election, he fiercely criticised the policy of free trade and echoed his brother’s call for an ambitious scheme of railway building in Ireland, though he stopped short of endorsing his proposal to endow the Roman Catholic Church, stating that he would only support the continuance of the Maynooth grant.10Morning Post, 4 Aug. 1847. He was re-elected unopposed.

Bentinck abstained from the votes on Roman Catholic relief, 8 Dec. 1847, and Jewish disabilities, 17 Dec. 1847, unlike his brother, George, who supported the bills and whose support for religious toleration saw him subsequently resign the leadership of the protectionist party, 23 Dec. 1847.11A. Macintyre, ‘Bentinck, Lord (William) George Frederic Cavendish-Scott- (1802-1848), Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com. Bentinck voted against the Jewish disabilities bill, 4 May 1848, but thereafter followed Disraeli into the division lobby on all other major issues. Following the death of George in September 1848, Bentinck immediately backed Disraeli for party leader in the Commons. Newcastle, who in November 1848 sought Bentinck’s opinions on the future of the party, recorded in his diary that he was:

Most highly gratified to find how strict [Bentinck] is in his political principles – how tenacious he is of a most unsullied and unsusceptible honour and how extremely anxious he is that our existence as a party should depend upon our maintenance of the purest principles.12Unhappy reactionary, 154.

Although Bentinck remained loyal to Disraeli, and played an important role in securing his leadership of the Conservative party, he made little impact in the Commons.13For Bentinck’s support for Disraeli’s leadership bid, see W.F. Monypenny and G.E. Buckle, The life of Benjamin Disraeli, earl of Beaconsfield (1914), iii. 128-9. His attendance was generally poor, and his select committee service was limited.14In the 1849 session he was present for 41 out of 219 divisions: Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849. His only select committee service was on the New Ross election petition: PP 1852-53 (356), xvi. 324. He was more effective as a local spokesman for protection, and in January 1850 chaired a great meeting of agriculturalists at East Retford, Nottinghamshire, where he controversially suggested that Peel, whose ‘vast fortune’ was ‘one-fourth in land, three-fourths in the funds’, had benefitted financially from repeal.15Nottinghamshire Guardian, 17 Jan. 1850. In a subsequent Commons debate on agricultural distress, Peel, referring to the remarks, accused him of ‘treachery’, prompting Bentinck to make his only known contribution to debate.16Hansard, 21 Feb. 1850, vol. 108, cc. 1248-9. Insinuating that Peel made a habit of attacking backbench MPs, he declared that the former premier had ‘given way to a weakness – and not for the first time in that House – in sporting with non-combatants, who might not … be able effectively to answer for themselves’. He went on to defend his original claim, arguing that as Peel was a wealthy man, he was better able to bear the change of policy than those agriculturalists who had ‘no funded property’.17Ibid., cc. 1262-4. This did little, though, to appease an indignant Peel, who was defended by Lord John Russell, who insisted that ‘such a charge will not be credited by any man of sense and intelligence in this country’.18Ibid., c. 1262.

At the 1852 general election Bentinck issued an address calling for the ‘re-imposition of a moderate duty upon untaxed foreign grain’.19Nottinghamshire Guardian, 15 July 1852. At the nomination, he resurrected his accusations of Peelite ‘political treachery’, and championed ‘justice for landed interests, security for our Church, and resistance to the democratic principles now so much in vogue’.20Ibid., 22 July 1852. Re-elected without opposition, he voted against Villiers’ motion praising corn law repeal, but abstained from Palmerston’s subsequent motion in support of free trade, 26 Nov. 1852. By now a rare sight in the division lobbies, he was present for only 30 out of 257 divisions in the 1853 session, and voted in a mere four out of 198 divisions in 1856.21Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; 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), 14. He continued to support Disraeli when present, and voted for Cobden’s censure motion on Canton, 3 Mar. 1857.

Bentinck retired from Parliament at the 1857 dissolution, following a feud with his elder brother, John, now the fifth duke of Portland, who was a Peelite. The source of the feud was a loan of £25,000 given by the two brothers to Disraeli in the late 1840s to help fund his purchase of Hughenden Manor, and thus cement his position as a country gentleman.22R. Blake, Disraeli (1966), 251. In 1857 Portland demanded repayment for the loan, much to the dismay of Bentinck, who subsequently sought to sever all ties with his reclusive brother.23Ibid., 267. Now resident at Tathwell Hall in Lincolnshire and determined to fully extricate himself from his brother’s influence, Bentinck issued a notably blunt resignation address:

Having ceased to be a resident in this county, holding no personal stake within it, and no longer in any manner whatever representing the family interest, it appeared to me that I was not now the fitting instrument to defend the Conservative interest in the division [and] that it would be morally wrong to place a large majority of my most zealous supporters in a false position with their landlord.24The Times, 26 Mar. 1857.

Following his retirement from public life, Bentinck returned to his first love of sport, hunting in the winter and deer-stalking in the autumn. In the summer he played world-class whist at the Portland Club and invented the call for trumps known as Blue Peter.25H. Bentinck, Foxhounds and their handling in the field, with an introduction by viscount Chaplin (1922), 7. His friendship with Disraeli, though, did not last long into his retirement, and after a quarrel of unknown origin in 1860, Disraeli implored him to ‘let me at least know on what ground I am deprived of the friendship which was the pride and consolation of my life’.26Draft letter to Bentinck, dated 6 June 1860: Benjamin Disraeli letters: 1860-1864 (2009), ed. M.G. Wiebe, M.S. Miller and A.P. Robson, 37.

Bentinck died suddenly from heart failure at Tathwell Hall in December 1870.27Morning Post, 2 Jan. 1871. He was unmarried. Although his political career was undoubtedly overshadowed by that of his brother, George, this was more than compensated for by his reputation as a talented foxhunter. His Foxhounds and their handling in the field was published posthumously in 1922. Bentinck’s letters to Disraeli are held by the Bodleian library, Oxford.28Oxford University: Bodleian library, Western manuscripts, MSS Disraeli.