PELHAM-CLINTON, Lord Robert Renebald (1820-1867), of Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire and Stafford House, St. James’s, London

Clinton was a member of one of Nottinghamshire’s most illustrious but controversial political dynasties. He was the youngest son of the fourth duke of Newcastle under Lyne, a manic-depressive, ultra tory who had been the most notorious opponent of the reform bill.1H.C.G. Matthew, ‘Clinton, Henry Pelham Fiennes Pelham-, fourth duke of Newcastle under Lyne (1785-1851)’, Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com. His eldest brother, the earl of Lincoln, served as a lord of the treasury, commissioner of woods and forests, and briefly chief secretary for Ireland during Peel’s two ministries, and, as fifth duke of Newcastle, was appointed colonial secretary, followed by secretary of state for war by Aberdeen, before resigning in disgrace over the condition of the British army in the Crimea 2F.D. Munsell, The unfortunate duke: Henry Pelham, fifth duke of Newcastle (1985). Like his brothers, Clinton had a difficult relationship with his troubled father, and when, at the end of 1845, he followed Lincoln in backing Peel over corn law repeal, Newcastle recorded in his diary that ‘Robert has deserted me without a pang and gone over to the same quarter’.3Unhappy reactionary: the diaries of the fourth duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, 1822-1850 (2003), ed. R.A. Gaunt, 137. He subsequently lamented that ‘my sons [have] failed to aid me when I most needed their assistance’.4Ibid. At the end of 1846 Clinton visited Ireland to assist in the distribution of the Irish famine relief fund, recalling later that it was this experience that converted him irrevocably to the necessity for free trade.5Nottinghamshire Guardian, 22 July 1852.

Clinton came forward for Nottinghamshire North at the 1852 general election. His father having died the previous year, he was backed by his Peelite eldest brother, now the fifth duke of Newcastle, though he was careful to insist that he was not his brother’s ‘nominee’.6Ibid. Standing ostensibly as a Liberal-Conservative, he zealously championed free trade, arguing that ‘the farmers of England may still be as wealthy men as ever they were under the highest Protection’, and insisted that while he was strongly attached to the established church, he supported religious toleration. Following an extensive canvass, he was elected without opposition.7Ibid., 15, 22 July 1852.

Dogged by ill-health throughout his Parliamentary career, Clinton was an infrequent attender and made no known speeches.8In the 1856 session he was present for only 28 out of 198 divisions: 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. His service on the 1859 Pontefract election committee was his only known select committee appearance.9PP 1859 sess. 2 (214), iv. 398. It is therefore difficult to discern any impact that Clinton made at Westminster. Unlike his father, he had little appetite for controversy, and unlike his eldest brother, he had no ambitions for office. In his first Parliament he was generally supportive of the Aberdeen coalition (in which Newcastle was colonial secretary), and he consistently opposed motions criticising the ministry’s handling of the Crimean War, 29 Jan., 22 May, 19 July 1855. In the division lobbies, therefore, he tended to divide against his other elder brother, Lord Charles Pelham Pelham-Clinton, who had been returned as Conservative MP for Sandwich in 1852, though he backed Disraeli’s motion to abolish income tax in 1860, 23 Feb. 1857. He also voted for Cobden’s censure motion on Canton, 3 Mar. 1857.

At the 1857 general election Clinton insisted that his vote on the China question was not influenced by ‘any idea or wish ... to overthrow the existing government, to whom I have always given an independent but steady support’.10The Times, 21 Mar. 1857. Calling for the return of a ‘Liberal government’, he backed an extension of the franchise, though he favoured a comprehensive measure of reform, rather than separate alterations to the borough and county franchises, and was against the ballot.11Ibid., 1 Apr. 1857. Re-elected without a contest, he voted against Palmerston’s conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858, the defeat of which caused the collapse of the government. On the controversial issue of the newly-formed Derby ministry’s dispatch condemning the governor-general of India for issuing the Oudh proclamation, an issue which threatened to bring the government down, Clinton was initially supportive of the ministry, though, according to Disraeli, he subsequently changed his mind and opposed them.12Disraeli to Derby, 16 May 1858: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1857-1859 (2004), ed. M.G. Wiebe, A.P. Robson, M.S. Millar, viii. 216. Although absent for large swathes of the 1858 and 1859 sessions, he was present to vote against the Conservative ministry’s reform bill, 31 Mar. 1859.

At the 1859 general election Clinton admitted that, due to continuing ill-health, his attendance in the Commons ‘had not been so constant as he could have wished’, but insisted that he had not ‘wilfully neglected’ his duties.13Nottinghamshire Guardian, 5 May 1859. At the nomination he criticised the Derby ministry’s reform bill. While he praised the proposed extension of the franchise to the £10 occupiers in the counties, he condemned the failure to extend the borough franchise, and opposed the disenfranchisement of the 40s. freeholders. He also had little time for ‘fancy franchises’, describing them as ‘impracticable and all unreasonable’.14Ibid. Returned unopposed for a third consecutive time, Clinton’s wish that the future state of his health would allow him to rival his colleague, the speaker John Evelyn Denison, ‘in the assiduity of his attendance’, proved to be hopelessly unrealistic, and he rarely troubled the division lobbies thereafter.15Ibid. There was little surprise when, following the 1865 dissolution, he announced his retirement from public life, lamenting the fact that he had been ‘unfit to fill so high a position as the representative of so important a constituency’.16Ibid., 23 June 1865.

Clinton died whilst staying at Earlswood, near Reigate, in Surrey, in July 1867, as a result of his ‘protracted illness’.17The Times, 27 July 1867. He was unmarried. His effects, valued under £20, were granted to his nephew, Henry Pelham Alexander Pelham-Clinton, the 6^th duke of Newcastle, who had briefly been Liberal MP for Newark, 1857-59.18England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, Index of wills and administration, 1858-1966, 16 Sept. 1867.