SCLATER (afterwards SCLATER-BOOTH), George (1826-1894), of Hoddington House, Odiham , Hants

Sclater-Booth’s family origins can be traced to the Gloucestershire family of Slaughter. They came to Hampshire in the early eighteenth century when his great grandfather, Richard Sclater, an alderman of London, married Magdalen Limbrey of Tangier Park and Hoddington House, a relative modest estate of 1,300 acres at Upton Grey near Odiham.1For his estate papers, see Hampshire Record Office (HRO), 120M98, 50M63/B70, TOP322/1/1. See also H.C.G. Matthew’s entry on Sclater-Booth in the Oxford DNB. But it was to his father, William Lutley Sclater (1789-1885), as existing accounts insufficiently recognise, that Sclater-Booth owed most. The former played a significant role in county affairs, variously as chairman of the Basingstoke Union’s board of guardians and its petty sessional division of magistrates, even temporarily chairing quarter sessions in 1849. He was also prominent in the North East Hants Agricultural Society, held a commission in the North Hants yeomanry cavalry, and chaired the Conservative Melville Portal’s election committee when he succeeded Sir William Heathcote at the by-election for Hampshire North in 1849.2For example, Southampton Univ. Lib., Wellington mss 4/1/2/1/19, 4/1/4/49; Hampshire Chronicle, 3 June 1848, 31 Mar. 1849. Clearly influenced by this activity, it is as unsurprising as it is significant that Sclater-Booth’s chief recommendation at his first nomination in 1857 was that he was his father’s son.3Hampshire Telegraph, 4 Apr. 1857.

Born George Sclater in London, he won the gold medal for Latin verse at Winchester before graduating in 1847 with a second in Classics from Oxford, where he was chiefly conspicuous for his rowing. Though he subsequently joined the Western circuit, having been called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1851, he never seems to have envisaged the law as a serious career. Qualifying as a county magistrate on 30 June 1856, the following months would determine his future decisively.4Oxford DNB. On 18 Mar. 1857, unhappy at the stance taken on some religious and foreign policy questions by Melville Portal, Sclater announced that friends had persuaded him to contest the North Hampshire constituency.5Hampshire Telegraph, 21 Mar. 1857. Describing himself as a Protectionist and independent Conservative, he called for a reduction in the malt tax and the abolition of income tax, though most of his address was devoted to his support for Palmerston and the Chinese war. Portal subsequently withdrew, allowing Sclater to make common cause with the other Conservative candidate, William Beach. The two comfortably saw off a late challenge from the Liberals.6Hampshire Independent, 21 Mar., 4 Apr. 1857; Hampshire Telegraph, 4 Apr. 1857. The Oxford DNB entry misses the fact that the 1857 election was contested. Later that year, Sclater assumed the additional surname of Booth in compliance with the will of a relative, Anna Maria Booth.7London Gazette, 20 Nov. 1857.

Sclater-Booth quickly set the standards by which he would make his mark in the Commons. In 1857 he took part in an impressive 86 divisions. These included opposing the secret ballot, 30 June, and the second reading of the married womens’ property bill, 15 July 1857, though unlike his Conservative colleague, Beach, he did vote for the second reading of the divorce bill, 24 July. On 2 July he divided with the minority against £22,615 being used to defray the expenses of a National Gallery; five days later he found himself in another radical cohort supporting the abolition of the office of lord lieutenant of Ireland. Thereafter, however, he was a regular and reliable supporter of the Conservative leaders on most issues. In 1858 his name appeared in 102 divisions. By then he was serving on the select committee on East India (transport of troops).8PP 1857-8 (382), x. 509. Though uncharacteristically absent from the vote on the first reading of the conspiracy to murder bill, 9 Feb. 1858, he supported Milner-Gibson’s motion against the second reading ten days later, which brought about the Palmerston ministry’s downfall. Later that year he also made the first of over 1,600 recorded speeches in Hansard, on a question about poor law medical officers, 10 June 1858.9Hansard, 10 June 1858, vol. 150, c. 1854. This interjection, like many thereafter, was brief and gradually gained him the reputation of speaking only on topics about which he was well informed. ‘He even held that a debate might be considered complete without his intervention in it’, The Times later observed, ironically.10The Times, 23 Oct. 1894. One in which he did intervene saw him briefly denying charges of bias in the Conservatives’ abortive reform bill of 1859. He and Beach were returned unopposed at the subsequent general election.11Hansard, 28 Feb. 1859, vol. 152, c. 1038; Hampshire Telegraph, 9 Apr. 1859.

Back at Westminster, Sclater-Booth continued to impress with his level of attendance, averaging nearly 60 divisions per year. He also served on a succession of select committees. These included those on the Clare election petition, public institutions (both 1860), the 1861 cadastral survey, the 1863 Lisburn election petition, the registration of county voters, Barnstaple election petition, turnpike trusts, sewage in the metropolis (all 1864), and the chemists and druggists bill (1865).12PP 1860 (178), xi. 87; PP 1860 (181), xvi. 1; PP 1861 (475), xiv. 93; PP 1863 (343), vii. 49; PP 1864 (203), x. 403; PP 1864 (219), x. 1; PP 1864 (383), ix. 331; PP 1864 (487), xiv.1; PP 1865 (381), xii. 303. Well might the Rev. Charles Dodson, in nominating Sclater-Booth at the 1865 election, allude to his rising cross-party reputation as a man of business in committee. An obituarist would later recall that Sclater-Booth undertook a ‘great deal’ of such work during his first decade or so in parliament.13Hampshire Telegraph, 26 July 1865; Aberdeen Weekly Journal, 23 Oct. 1894.

Sclater-Booth also became an increasingly frequent contributor to debates during the 1859 parliament. On 1 Mar. 1860 this included lending his support to Gladstone’s tariff reductions. On 4 July 1861, he stood up for Aldershot in his constituency in a debate on supply, though the following year, on 2 May, he was voicing concern at the behaviour of troops in and around its barracks. On 8 July 1863 he spoke briefly as one of the sponsors of the poisoned grain prohibition bill.14Hansard, 1 Mar. 1860, vol. 156, cc. 2111-12; 4 July 1861, vol. 164, c. 367; 2 May 1862, vol. 166, cc. 1131-2; 8 July 1863, vol. 172, c. 388. Earlier, on 19 May 1862, continuing a previous theme, he raised concern at the cost to the taxpayer of creating a Natural History Museum. In like vein two years later, on 6 June 1864, he thought that a new National Gallery off Trafalgar Square should be financed by the Royal Academy since, ‘that body had plenty of money, and could afford to build itself a gallery’.15Ibid., 19 May 1862, vol. 166, cc. 1919-1920; 6 June 1864, vol. 175, c. 1321. On 27 Mar. 1865, in his longest speech to date, on the second reading of the union chargeability bill, he confirmed his growing reputation as a specialist in local government affairs by urging caution on the House in face of what he considered to be a wrongheaded government measure.16Ibid., 27 Mar. 1865, vol. 178, cc. 341-3. Mindful of the priorities of his agricultural constituents, he also several times called for a reduction in, and preferably the abolition of, the malt tax.17Ibid., 8 Feb. 1864, vol. 173, c. 228; 27 Apr. 1865, vol. 178, c. 1145; 17 Apr. 1866, vol. 182, cc. 1564-5.

Despite, or rather because of, this impressive parliamentary profile, Sclater-Booth found himself facing a serious challenge at the 1865 general election: North Hampshire’s Liberals were more or less explicit that it was his seat, not William Beach’s, which they sought. The charge was that he had behaved factiously in opposing Palmerston. Sclater-Booth denied it, though he did admit that he had opposed the prime minister over the Schleswig-Holstein question and duly supported Disraeli’s unsuccessful censure motion on the issue, 8 July 1864.18Hampshire TeIegraph, 19, 26 July 1865; HRO, 95M94/169. He had also opposed Palmerston over Poland and was at best lukewarm about Italian unification, saying in the Commons on 8 May 1863 that ‘there would have been less disappointment in regard to the results of what was called “the unification of Italy” if a less revolutionary course had been pursued there’.19Hansard, 8 May 1863, vol. 170, cc. 1471-2. Sclater-Booth nevertheless held on to the second seat at the 1865 election by 231 votes. Thereafter he and Beach would sit together undisturbed until 1885; indeed, 1857 and 1865 were the only contests he would face until he won the newly created seat of Basingstoke in November 1885.

Sclater-Booth would further consummate his growing reputation in the 1865 parliament. As well as being present at well over 125 divisions in both 1867 and 1868, he served on a continuing range of select committees, including those on mines, turnpike trusts, the East London water bills, the Oxford and Cambridge universities education bill (all 1867), as well as the 1867-8 inquiry on the Shannon River.20PP 1867 (321), xiii. 127; PP 1867 (352), xii. 709; PP 1867 (399), ix. 1; PP 1867 (497), xiii. 183; PP 1867-8 (277), x. 555. The most important, however, was the influential committee on public accounts, to which he was added in 1866, of which he later became chairman (1868-1874).21PP 1866 (475), viii. 555. Official recognition from his party leaders (who he supported loyally in the votes over the second reform bill: his longest speech to date had come in outlining what he considered to be technical shortcomings in the proposed Liberal measure of 1866),22Hansard, Ibid., 28 May 1866, vol. 183, cc. 1371-6. See also his fears that county freeholders would be swamped by the proposed enfranchisement of £14 occupiers: ibid., 14 June 1866, vol. 184, c. 447. came with his appointment under Derby as secretary to the poor law board in March 1867. This, it was later claimed, first brought him to some sort of national prominence, when he urged cooperation between the local boards of guardians and private charity to ease the effects of distress in the East End.23Birmingham Daily Post, 23 Oct. 1894; Hansard, 6 Dec. 1867, vol. 190, cc. 644-5. By March 1868 he was financial secretary to the treasury, a post he held until leaving office with Disraeli in December. The latter office necessitated his making 109 statements or answers to questions during that year on a myriad of issues ranging from explaining the mail arrangements with Australia to the means of communication that existed between the government and British Columbia.24Hansard, 20 Mar. 1868, vol. 190, c. 1979; 30 July 1868, vol. 193, cc.1141-2.

In 1868, of course, Sclater-Booth’s best remembered years still lay ahead of him, for he would become president of the local government board in Disraeli’s second ministry. Though not in cabinet, he would play a key role in piloting the 1875 Public Health and Sale of Food and Drugs Acts through Parliament.25R. Blake, Disraeli (1966), p. 555n. His subsequent, albeit abortive, plan for county elective boards in 1877 was seen by some as the real begetter of the 1888 Local Government Act.26Glasgow Herald, 23 Oct. 1894. After leaving office in 1880, he was appointed chairman of grand committees in the Commons. In July 1887 he was elevated to the Lords.

Away from Parliament, Sclater-Booth was a keen shot and huntsman, as well as being acknowledged as a competent amateur artist. He was on the governing body of Winchester College and the first official verderer of the New Forest following the 1877 New Forest Act. In 1888 he was the obvious choice to serve as the first chairman of the newly-created Hampshire County Council, a position he filled until he retired in March 1894.27Hampshire Telegraph, 27 Oct. 1894. In 1892 he suffered an accident, whilst hunting, from which he never fully recovered. Reported as having been suffering from heart disease and dropsy, he died at Hoddington House on 22 Oct. 1894. The local press responded by declaring that ‘a piece of the mosaic of country life has fallen from its place’.28Hampshire Advertiser, 27 Oct. 1894. Expanding the theme, The Times wrote that ‘Lord Basing was one of those men whose unpaid work in their counties, slighted and undervalued as it often is, sets a good example of local patriotism, and contributes more than anything else to the efficiency of local government. He was a living argument, as is many another country gentlemen, against the attempts now being made, generally from class jealousy, to oust men of education and position from their due share in the management of country affairs’.29The Times, 23 Oct. 1894.

It was, however, universally agreed that Sclater-Booth was no great orator. His specialist interest in local affairs, and administration more generally, were hardly conducive to it. Lord Randolph Churchill with memorable irony on one occasion, ‘entertained the strongest objection to the President of the Local Government Board coming down to the House with all the appearance of a great law-giver - to reform according to his ideas, and to improve, in his little way, the leading features of the British Constitution’.30Hansard, 7 Mar. 1878, vol. 238, cc. 900-8. For good measure Churchill would affect to believe that all those possessed of double-barrelled names belonged to the ‘harmless mediocrities’ of ‘commonplace officialdom’.31Glasgow Herald, 23 Oct. 1894; Western Mail, 23 Oct. 1894. But it must also be admitted that neither Sclater-Booth’s manner, nor his appearance, helped his cause. One observer, far from the most unkind, wrote that he ‘had a portly figure and carried it with an air of dignity that offended the political aspirant’. When he lunched in the City it was said that he ordered chops for two.32Daily News, 23 Oct. 1894; Western Mail, 23 Oct. 1894. In due course obituarists would take a more balanced and generous view of his parliamentary contribution. The Glasgow Herald said that ‘he was one of the hard-headed, the hard-working, cool, and businesslike men to whom our public service really owes as much if not more than it does to some of the more brilliant intellects who seize upon the public imagination and get all the credit for every good work accomplished’.33Glasgow Herald, 23 Oct. 1894. The Times judged that ‘his Parliamentary life may thus be said to have been rather useful than ambitious; solid rather than distinguished’ and that he was ‘a good example of the best kind of member of Parliament’.34The Times, 27 Oct. 1894.

Sclater-Booth was buried alongside his wife at Upton Grey, Hampshire and succeeded in his peerage and estates by his eldest son, George Limbrey Sclater-Booth (1860-1919), then a captain in the 1^st royal dragoons.35Ibid. His will was proved on 22 Nov. 1894 at £49,147 16s. 4d. His younger brother was the eminent zoologist, Philip Lutley Sclater.