FITZWILLIAM, Hon. William Thomas Spencer Wentworth, visct. Milton (III) (1815-1902), of 4 Grosvenor Square, London and Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorks.

Milton was one of ‘very few’ parliamentarians who were present both at the opening of the first Parliament of Queen Victoria’s reign in 1837, in which he sat for his family’s pocket borough of Malton, and the first Parliament of Edward VII’s reign in 1901, by which time he was one of the oldest members of the Lords.2Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 21 Feb. 1902. As an MP, he also spent a decade representing county Wicklow, where the Fitzwilliams had extensive estates. Despite his political longevity, he demonstrated ‘little taste for politics’, unlike his father and grandfather, although he was ‘as staunch an adherent of Liberal principles as any of his family’.3Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 4 July 1865. Described as ‘mute inglorious Milton’,4The Times, 13 Oct. 1841. he never spoke in the Commons, and was also a rare presence in the division lobbies.5Milton was present for 15 out of 219 divisions in the 1849 session, 10 out of 247 in 1853 and just 5 out of 198 in 1856: Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849; Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions in the House of Commons during the last session of Parliament (1857), 32. Milton’s committee service appears to have been confined to private bills: York Herald, 16 May 1846; Sheffield Independent, 22 May 1847.

Born at Milton, Northamptonshire,6G.E.C., Complete Peerage, v. 525. where the family had estates in addition to their holdings in Yorkshire and Ireland, Milton was the second son of the third Earl Fitzwilliam, but became heir to the earldom upon his older brother’s untimely death in November 1835. The title of viscount Milton was held in abeyance, as his brother’s widow was pregnant, but when she produced a daughter in January 1836, he assumed his new name.7Sheffield Independent, 14 Nov. 1835; Morning Post, 1 Dec. 1835; The Times, 14 Jan. 1836. He was described at this time as ‘a high spirited young man, of stronger constitution than his late brother’, and displayed ‘heroic personal efforts’ in 1838 when he and his father helped to tackle a fire on one of their tenants’ farms at Alwalton.8York Herald, 16 Jan. 1836; The Times, 26 Mar. 1838. He regularly appeared alongside or deputised for his father at public events across Yorkshire. He was involved with various learned societies, including the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the West Riding Geological and Polytechnic Society,9Belfast News-Letter, 15 Sept. 1837; Sheffield Independent, 9 June 1838, 14 Sept. 1839. He was also a member of the Ornithological Society and the Surtees Society: Morning Post, 26 June 1837; Newcastle Courant, 13 Oct. 1837. but was more prominent in the yeomanry cavalry, which he joined in 1836.10Morning Post, 23 July 1836. He was lieutenant-colonel commandant of the 1st West Yorkshire yeomanry cavalry from 1846.11Sheffield Independent, 2 May 1846.

Not long after his 21st birthday, Milton was returned unopposed for a vacancy at Malton, where his father controlled both seats. He later claimed to have been ‘called unwillingly into Parliament’.12Sheffield Independent, 14 Oct. 1837. Rumours in the Conservative press that he was ‘at least three-parts Tory’ were rebutted by his hustings speech in January 1837.13Leeds Intelligencer, cited in Morning Post, 2 Feb. 1836. He avowed his commitment to pursuing ‘a liberal course’ and supporting ‘useful reform’, and praised Grey’s ministry for passing ‘that great charter of freedom, the Reform Bill’. He bemoaned the fact that the Melbourne ministry’s efforts at Irish municipal reform had been ‘thwarted by those would-be legislators, the Lords’, who were ‘ignorant of the feeling of the sister country’.14Sheffield Independent, 4 Feb. 1837. One of his first votes was to divide with ministers on this question, 22 Feb. 1837.15Milton subsequently paired for the third reading of the Irish municipal corporations bill, 11 Apr. 1837: The Standard, 12 Apr. 1837. He was less enthusiastic about ministerial plans to replace church rates with funds drawn from the surplus revenues of the church, refusing to vote with ministers, 15 Mar., despite being present in the House, and also abstaining, 23 May 1837, when the ministerial majority was only five.16The Standard, 17 Mar. 1837; Sheffield Independent, 27 May 1837.

Milton sought re-election at Malton at that year’s general election, but also offered for Northamptonshire North, following a requisition from 1,000 voters.17Morning Chronicle, 12 July 1837. Although his family owned property in the area and the seat had previously been held by Milton’s father and brother, The Times considered his chances poor, and he was defeated by two Conservatives.18Morning Post, 29 July 1837. Milton complained that his opponents ‘came against me with all the power of the Tory landlords, and all the power of the parsons’.19Sheffield Independent, 14 Oct. 1837. He fell back on Malton, where he was returned unopposed in his absence.20Leeds Mercury, 5 Aug. 1837.

There were repeated claims that Milton was ‘not very staunch’ in his Liberalism,21Bradford Observer, 25 Jan. 1838. and rumours that he would join the Stanleyites.22Morning Post, 10 Feb. 1838. A correspondent to The Times in August 1837 listed him among those Liberal MPs who ‘if Whig-Radicals at all, are most moderate in their opinions’,23The Times, 22 Aug. 1837. and noted that Milton had yet to support ‘church spoliation’.24The Times, 28 Aug. 1837. However, he voted for appropriation of surplus Irish church revenues, 15 May 1838, and reports thereafter that he had become a Conservative were merely ‘a stale old lie’.25Sheffield Independent, 1 Dec. 1838. He backed Liberal ministers on their Canadian policy, 7 Mar. 1838, and slave apprenticeships, 28 May 1838. He was, however, unafraid to enter the opposite lobby, notably on Irish questions, and was in the minorities against the third reading of the Irish poor law bill, 30 Apr. 1838, and in support of a £5 limit for the Irish county franchise, 28 Apr. 1841. Although he divided against the ballot, 15 Feb. 1838, he joined the largely Radical minority which voted to go into committee on the Chartist petition, 12 July 1839. Less surprising, given that his father was one of the most prominent aristocratic critics of the corn laws, were his votes to hear the corn law petitioners at the bar of the House, 19 Feb. 1839, and for Villiers’ anti-corn law motions, 18 Mar. 1839, 26 May 1840.26D. Spring, ‘Earl Fitzwilliam and the Corn Laws’, American Historical Review, 59 (1954), 287-304. He rallied to ministers on the confidence motions of Yarde Buller, 31 Jan. 1840, and Peel, 4 June 1841.27In December 1840 he supported the Liberal candidate at the county Carlow by-election: Freeman’s Journal, 1 Dec. 1840.

It had been reported in July 1840 that Milton would offer for the West Riding at the dissolution, and he duly stood in 1841 alongside Lord Morpeth.28The Times, 13 July 1840. He later observed that he had been ‘very unwilling to quit’ Malton, but ‘when such a large constituency as that called on me to come forward, I could not refuse their call’.29York Herald, 18 Apr. 1846. The ‘advocate of Free Trade’, in his election address he declared that altering the corn laws was ‘essential to the welfare of all classes’. He endorsed the new poor law which ‘protects the public purse against those who have no just claims upon it’, but believed that it should be ‘administered in tenderness’. He also backed ministerial proposals on education.30Bradford Observer, 10 June 1841. Milton, who possessed ‘nicely pointed whiskers’,31Northern Star, 3 July 1841. was ill at ease as a speaker, with his voice ‘too weak to be heard at much distance’.32Leeds Mercury, 26 June 1841. Even his supporters heckled him to ‘have more confidence in yourself’ and ‘cheer up’.33Leeds Mercury, 3 July 1841. He left most of the election speaking to Morpeth, confining himself to emphasising his prestigious political pedigree and endorsing free trade. At a meeting at Leeds he cited his father’s notable 1807 Yorkshire contest ‘in the cause of liberty’, and condemned Peel as a ‘slippery gentleman’.34Morning Chronicle, 25 June 1841. The Northern Star criticised this ‘pitiable exhibition’ of oratory: ‘some careful grandmother had put down for him a string of ordinary mean-naughts about his father and free trade, which the luckless youth in trying to repeat from memory, stuck fast in and then referring to his prompt book, lost the line of his lesson’.35Northern Star, 26 June 1841. He fared little better on the hustings, where The Times derided his ‘worse than school-boy effort at elocution’.36The Times, 12 July 1841. Even the supportive Bradford Observer, which declared Milton’s hustings speech to be ‘replete with sound views’, admitted that ‘he appeared not so self-assured in the delivery of it, as practice will make him some time hence’: Bradford Observer, 8 July 1841. In a prominent election defeat for the Liberals, Milton polled third behind the two Conservatives, and at the declaration gave a ‘waspish and mortified harangue’,37Morning Post, 15 July 1841. warning that the Conservatives would govern Ireland ‘with the sword’ in contrast with Morpeth’s ‘mild and yet efficient administration’.38The Times, 14 July 1841.

It initially seemed that Milton would quickly find an alternative seat. His election address for Northamptonshire North was reportedly ‘already in type’, but he did not offer.39The Times, 9 July 1841. His arrival in Dublin shortly after his West Riding defeat led to speculation that he was ‘to try his fate in Wicklow on the Fitzwilliam interest’.40Morning Post, 12 July 1841. One of the Liberal candidates, Sir Ralph Howard, was said to be ‘merely keeping an opening for Lord Milton, who is hourly expected here’,41Freeman’s Journal, 14 July 1841. but Milton did not appear.42Morning Post, 15 July 1841. Rumours that Malton would provide a fallback proved equally groundless.43Leeds Intelligencer, cited in The Times, 14 June 1841. His name was also suggested for vacancies at Liverpool in 1842 and South Lancashire in 1844.44The Times, 27 Jan. 1842; Bristol Mercury, 11 May 1844. Yet Milton appeared content to remain out of Parliament, devoting much time to sporting activities. He was a keen breeder and owner of racehorses,45He had been steward of York races in 1837, but declined to be steward at Doncaster in 1841 ‘as I do not approve of the manner in which racing is now conducted’: York Herald, 28 Oct. 1837; The Era, 29 Aug. 1841. sometimes riding them himself, as at Fairfield races in 1842, and an enthusiastic foxhunter.46The Times, 21 Feb. 1902; York Herald, 22 Oct. 1842. The successes of his racehorses were, however, ‘singularly few’: Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 21 Feb. 1902. He joined the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1843 and entertained the king of Saxony on his yacht Merlin when he visited Scotland in 1844, although he sold this vessel in 1850.47Hampshire Telegraph, 22 May 1843; The Standard, 8 May 1844; Dundee Courier, 6 Aug. 1844; The Standard, 15 June 1850. He employed a cricketing tutor,48Bradford Observer, 7 Sept. 1843. and played for local Yorkshire teams against the All England Eleven, as well as for the United Eleven of England in a match at Dublin in 1854.49Morning Post, 6 Aug. 1853; Morning Post, 1 Sept. 1854. He became president of the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1856.50The Era, 11 May 1856.

It was reported in January 1846 that Milton would again contest the West Riding at the next election.51Morning Chronicle, 26 Jan. 1846. However, he was returned for Malton that April after one of the incumbents, John Walbanke Childers, obligingly took the Chiltern Hundreds.52Childers was re-elected for Malton in 1847. Following his unopposed return, Milton made ‘a brief but thorough free trade speech’.53Leeds Mercury, 18 Apr. 1846. He was joined at a celebratory dinner by Morpeth, recently returned for the West Riding, who noted that both men were back in Parliament in time to vote for repeal of the corn laws, suggesting that this may have influenced Milton’s decision to re-enter the Commons.54Ibid. Later that year Milton proposed Morpeth for re-election in the West Riding following his appointment to Russell’s ministry, noting the ‘great difficulty’ he always felt in public speaking.55Sheffield Independent, 25 July 1846.

Milton duly divided for the third reading of the repeal of the corn laws, 15 May 1846. He opposed the Irish coercion bill, 25 June, having earlier been in the minority which endorsed Daniel O’Connell’s motion that this measure was ‘arbitrary, unjust, and unconstitutional’, 1 May 1846. He was otherwise rarely present in the lobbies, but took a growing interest in Irish concerns. He chaired a meeting in 1845 of the Clonmel, Kilkenny, Carlow and Wicklow railway company,56Morning Chronicle, 17 Oct. 1845. This embroiled Milton in a court case in 1848 when the engineer of the now defunct line tried to recover £5,000 due to him for his services. The lord chancellor subsequently ruled that Milton and his fellow MP William Hayter had not done enough as members of the railway company’s committee to assist in providing the company’s books for scrutiny, although Milton testified that he had only attended one meeting of the company: Daily News, 5 May 1848; Morning Chronicle, 5 May 1848. and spent much time at the family’s Wicklow residence, Coollatin Park, near Shillelagh, where his ‘urbanity and kindness’ – which included the erection of two schools in 1846 – ‘won him golden opinions from all classes’.57Dublin Evening Post, cited in Freeman’s Journal, 13 Mar. 1846. In 1847 he joined landowners at a Dublin meeting to discuss relieving economic distress, and the Freeman’s Journal observed that ‘his public life proves that he is a good Irishman’.58The Times, 16 Jan. 1847; Freeman’s Journal, 14 June 1847. While Milton did not favour repeal of the Union, Dr. Murphy of the Repeal Association reported in 1843 that Milton had expressed support for ‘federal government for Ireland’.59The Standard, 5 Oct. 1843. Despite rumours that he would quit Malton for Northamptonshire North at the 1847 election,60Morning Post, 4 Aug. 1847. Milton instead offered for county Wicklow, where ‘the immense Fitzwilliam property’ gave his family a commanding influence.61The Times, 22 May 1847. He had initially anticipated an uncontested return alongside the sitting Liberal, Howard, as the Conservative, William Acton, intended to retire.62The Times, 30 June 1847. However, when Acton offered again, Howard stood aside.63The Times, 7 July 1847. On the hustings Milton declared his support for Irish railway building, and, responding to a question on tenant rights, promised to back compensation for improvements.64B. Walker, ‘Politicians, elections and catastrophe: the general election of 1847’, Irish Political Studies, 22 (2007), 24.

Following his unopposed return Milton departed on his yacht for the Mediterranean, and did not take his seat until 10 Mar. 1848, a month after the new Parliament opened.65Sheffield Independent, 4 Sept. 1847; The Standard, 11 Mar. 1848. When present, he sat below the gangway on the ministerial side of the House.66Leeds Mercury, 2 Feb. 1850. He divided in support of free trade, but again took an independent line on Irish questions, voting in the minority against the second reading of the poor laws (Ireland) rate in aid bill, 3 Apr. 1849. He was also in the minority for repeal of the malt tax, 8 May 1851. He rallied to Palmerston on the Don Pacifico question, 28 June 1850, but divided with Russell rather than Palmerston on the militia bill, 26 Apr. 1852. He retained his interest in Yorkshire politics, supporting the abortive candidature of his younger brother Charles for the West Riding in 1848.67Milton presided over the Liberal meeting which selected Charles as candidate, and accompanied him when he began his canvass at a disastrous public meeting at Leeds: The Examiner, 21 Oct. 1848; Bradford Observer, 23 Nov. 1848.

At the 1852 election Milton was re-elected unopposed alongside a Conservative, promising to uphold the same principles as before.68Morning Chronicle, 9 Apr. 1852. There had initially been five candidates in the field for Wicklow: Morning Post, 11 Mar. 1852. His comments about giving Derby’s ministry ‘a fair trial’ prompted renewed claims that he had become ‘an independent Conservative’,69The Nonconformist, cited in Hampshire Telegraph, 31 July 1852. but the Freeman’s Journal explained that ‘though his lordship declared he would offer no violent objection to the Derby government, that is very far from a declaration of general support’.70Freeman’s Journal, 29 July 1852. Although he remained a lax attender, his voting habits confirmed his adhesion to the Liberals, dividing against Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1852, but endorsing Gladstone’s, 2 May 1853. He voted against the Aberdeen ministry on the enlistment of foreigners bill, 19 Dec. 1854, and on Roebuck’s motion for an inquiry into the management of the Crimean war, 29 Jan. 1855. Reports that he might be appointed a secretary of the treasury in the new Palmerston ministry proved groundless.71Daily News, 26 Feb. 1855. Nonetheless he gave that ministry his loyal support, dividing against the hostile motions of Disraeli and Roebuck, 25 May, 19 July 1855, and of Cobden on the Canton question, 3 Mar, 1857. He backed Locke King’s proposals to equalise the county and borough franchises, 19 Feb. 1857.

Milton stood for re-election as a supporter of Palmerston at the 1857 general election, when he declined to comment on the issue of tenant right.72Freeman’s Journal, 10 Apr. 1857. Milton had been absent from the vote on William Sharman Crawford’s tenant right motion, 5 May 1852: Freeman’s Journal, 8 May 1852. The late appearance of a second Liberal, with whom Milton did not coalesce, prompted a contest, in which Milton topped the poll.73The Times, 15 Apr. 1857. At Westminster he paired for the Maynooth grant, 21 May, and opposed the ballot, 30 June 1857.74Belfast News-Letter, 25 May 1857. Upon his father’s death that October he succeeded as fourth earl. He inherited the family’s Irish estates, totalling over 90,000 acres in Wicklow, Kildare and Wexford, but the English properties were divided, with the new earl receiving over 22,000 acres in Yorkshire, including Malton (where he controlled the borough’s representation), the family seat at Wentworth, and Ecclesall.75Manchester Guardian, cited in Daily News, 7 Oct. 1857; Sheffield Independent, 10 Oct. 1857, 22 Feb. 1902. His brother George inherited the Milton Abbey and Northamptonshire property, and his brother Charles received estates in the North Riding and the northern part of the West Riding. Alongside his 22,000 acres in Yorkshire, Fitzwilliam owned around 900 acres elsewhere in England: J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland (4th edn, 1883), 168.

Fitzwilliam did not make his maiden speech in the Lords until 1860, and was not active thereafter. Shortly before his father’s death he had been appointed as lord lieutenant of the West Riding, a position he held until retiring due to ‘enfeebled health’ in 1892.76Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 21 Feb. 1902. He was an important figurehead in Yorkshire’s public life, supporting innumerable philanthropic endeavours. His Yorkshire estates included substantial coal deposits, and Fitzwilliam was president of the West Riding Miners’ Permanent Benefit Fund.77The Times, 21 Feb. 1902; Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 21 Feb. 1902. He also supported relief efforts such as that following the Oaks colliery disaster in 1866. A ‘staunch’ Anglican, he was patron of 21 livings, supported many church schools, and built a new church at Wentworth, which opened in 1877.78Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 21 Feb. 1902. He continued his ‘deep interest in the reserve forces’, commanding the 1st West Yorkshire yeomanry cavalry until 1886, and serving as Queen Victoria’s aide de camp for the yeomanry cavalry, 1884-94.79The Times, 24 Oct. 1894, 21 Feb. 1902.

He spent ‘a considerable part of each year’ at Coollatin Park, where he was ‘on friendly terms with his tenants’.80Manchester Courier, 22 Feb. 1902. He invested £1,000 in and gave land for a branch railway to Shillelagh in 1862,81The Times, 29 Oct. 1862. and chaired the local board of guardians for over 40 years.82The Times, 22 Feb. 1902. In 1879 he reportedly drew income of £13,000 from his Irish estates, but dedicated around three-quarters of the rents received to improvements.83The Times, 3 Jan. 1881. Perturbed by the Irish ‘land war’, he subscribed £1,000 to the Irish Property Defence Association in 1881.84The Times, 8 Dec. 1881, 29 Apr. 1882. An opponent of Home Rule, he joined the Liberal Unionists in 1886,85He became chairman of the Sheffield and district Liberal Unionists, and president of the Irish Unionist Alliance and the Yorkshire Liberal Unionist Federation: The Times, 4 June 1886, 16 Mar. 1893, 15 Dec. 1899. a political shift which some saw foreshadowed in 1878 when he blocked a resolution against Disraeli’s foreign policy at a meeting at Rotherham.86Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 21 Feb. 1902.

Fitzwilliam died at Wentworth in February 1902 ‘from bronchitis, following on a severe cold’.87Manchester Courier, 22 Feb. 1902. His wife had predeceased him, dying in Ireland in 1895: The Times, 17 June 1895. At the time of his death he was the senior Knight of the Garter, and one of the Jockey Club’s oldest members.88Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 21 Feb. 1902. Remembered for ‘an upright life, a genial disposition, and a kindly heart’, he was buried at Wentworth church. Over 1,000 of his colliers paid their respects alongside tenants from Yorkshire, Northamptonshire and Ireland.89Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 26 Feb. 1902. He was succeeded in the earldom and his estates by his grandson William Charles de Meuron Wentworth Fitzwilliam (1872-1943), Liberal Unionist MP for Wakefield, 1895-1902, whose father, William (1839-1877) had predeceased him. The succession prompted a bitter family dispute as some of the late earl’s children alleged that the new earl was an impostor substituted at birth for a female child.90C. Bailey, Black Diamonds (2007), 14-22. The new earl had been born in a remote part of Canada. One of the richest men of his day, the gross value of Fitzwilliam’s estate was in June 1902 reported at £2,949,830 13s. 9d. He gave his unmarried daughters Alice and Charlotte the use of his London house, 4 Grosvenor Square, for 12 months, and an annuity, and also left Alice his estate at Eastcliffe, Bembridge, Isle of Wight, until her marriage or her death.91Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 27 June 1902. He gave a £1,000 annuity to his brother-in-law, Admiral Hon. George Douglas, and left £200,000 to his oldest surviving son, William Henry, and £50,000 each to his younger sons.92Ibid.; Bailey, Black Diamonds, 54. Three of the earl’s eight sons followed him into Parliament.93William, viscount Milton (1839-1877), represented the southern division of the West Riding as a Liberal, 1865-72; William Henry (1840-1920), sat as a Liberal for county Wicklow, 1868-74, and for the southern division of the West Riding, 1880-5, and as a Liberal Unionist for Doncaster, 1888-92; and William John (1852-1889) represented Peterborough, 1878-89, latterly as a Liberal Unionist. The earl’s third son, William Charles (1848-1925), was the unsuccessful Conservative candidate for Hallamshire in 1885. The Fitzwilliam family papers are held at Sheffield Archives and Northamptonshire Record Office, while Fitzwilliam’s correspondence with Lord Halifax is in the Borthwick Institute, York.