SAVILE, John Charles George, Visct. Pollington (1810-1899), of Methley Park, nr. Leeds, Yorks. and 33 Dover Street, Piccadilly, London.

‘Of slight build, with delicate fine-cut features, and a singularly incisive utterance’, the scholarly and well-travelled Pollington sat twice as a Conservative for Pontefract until his father’s financial difficulties forced him to abandon an unremarkable parliamentary career.1The Standard, 19 Aug. 1899. He was not an accomplished public speaker, and the House ‘very rarely heard his voice’.2Morning Post, 19 Aug. 1899. By virtue of his longevity, however, he acquired the distinction in 1899 of being the sole survivor of the pre-Reform Commons.

Pollington’s father, the Tory third earl of Mexborough, held an Irish peerage, but came from a Yorkshire family ‘of ancient descent and considerable influence’,3The Assembled Commons (1837), 144. with a 7,000 acre estate at Methley, near Pontefract.4J.T. Ward, ‘West Riding landowners and the corn laws’, EHR, 81 (1966), 268. He represented that borough in the Commons, 1807-12, December 1812-1826 and 1831-2, when he decided against seeking re-election because of the likely expense.5HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 19. Pollington was educated at Eton, where he showed ‘evidence of literary tastes... his gift finding expression in versification or school skits’, and at Cambridge, where ‘a marvellous memory and an ardent love of classics distinguished him’. An ‘omnivorous reader and master of several languages’,6Daily News, 19 Aug. 1899. he was also ‘a good sportsman, a good shot, and like most Yorkshire gentlemen of his time, fond of horses’.7The Standard, 19 Aug. 1899.

At the 1831 election, though not quite of age, Pollington was returned for Gatton on the interest of his cousin, Baron Monson. Like his father he divided against the Grey ministry’s reform bill.8HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 20. Gatton was disfranchised in 1832, and Pollington did not immediately seek election elsewhere. Instead he embarked on extensive travels in Europe and beyond, visiting Russia, Persia and India.9G. de Gaury, Travelling gent. The life of Alexander Kinglake (1809-1891) (1972), 22. In October 1833 he and his brother Charles returned from Bombay after ‘a long and interesting tour in the East’.10The Standard, 18 Oct. 1833. He visited the Ottoman Empire with his friend Alexander Kinglake in 1834, which Kinglake later recounted in Eothen; or Traces of travel brought home from the East (1844), in which Pollington featured, thinly disguised, as Methley, who combined formidable scholarship with ‘the practical sagacity of a Yorkshireman’.11HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 20.

Pollington was at Constantinople when Mexborough announced in December 1834 that his son would offer for Pontefract at the general election.12Sheffield Independent, 13 Dec. 1834. The Saviles retained some local influence there after 1832,13H.J. Hanham (ed.), Charles R. Dod. Electoral facts from 1832 to 1853 impartially stated (1972), 251. with ‘the poorer class’ of electors supposedly stating that ‘if a dog were to come from that family we would vote for it’.14The Standard, 22 Dec. 1859. Pollington’s brother Henry campaigned on his behalf,15The Times, 18 Dec. 1834. and at the nomination ‘spoke briefly and fluently in defence of Conservative principles’.16The Times, 9 Jan. 1835. The lone Conservative candidate, Pollington secured the second seat. Mexborough assured Peel that his son, to whom he had written in Corfu informing him of his return, would offer him ‘every possible support’.17Lord Mexborough to Sir Robert Peel, 5 Feb. 1835, Add. 40413, f. 199.

Never an assiduous attender, Pollington missed the division on the speakership, 19 Feb., but had returned home via Malta in time to vote with the Conservatives on the address, 26 Feb. 1835.18Morning Post, 4 Mar. 1835. He rallied behind Peel in the critical divisions on Chandos’s motion for repeal of the malt tax, 10 Mar., and Russell’s motion on the Irish church, 2 Apr. 1835. He opposed the second reading of the factory regulation bill, 9 May 1836, but in the 1840s he became a reliable supporter of the ten hour factory day. His committee service appears to have been confined to the county Carlow election petition.19The Times, 15 May 1835. His only known speech in this Parliament was on British policy towards Russia, arguing that ‘the apathy of this country towards the cause of Poland was most injurious to its own interests’, 19 Feb. 1836, and referring to his Eastern European travels. In December 1836 it was reported that he had been dangerously ill in Ireland, but was almost recovered.20Hull Packet, 30 Dec. 1836. This did not prevent his attendance in the 1837 session, when he presented petitions against the abolition of church rates, 3 Mar., 10 May, and the York and North Midland railway, 6 Mar.21Leeds Mercury, 11 Mar. 1837.

Pollington did not seek re-election in 1837, instead resuming his travels. His account of Syria in 1838 was published by the Royal Geographical Society.22‘Notes on a Journey from Erz-Rúm, by Músh, Diyár-Bekr, and Bíreh-jik, to Aleppo, in June 1838’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London (1840), x. 445-54. In 1839 he again visited India.23The Standard, 16 Nov. 1839. He was back in England in 1840, voting that November for Lord Lyndhurst as high steward of Cambridge University.24The Times, 12 Nov. 1840. He travelled regularly until ‘advancing age’ curtailed this. One obituary noted that he had visited Persia when it ‘was little known by Englishmen’ and was ‘a familiar figure in Constantinople’. He knew ‘the Steppes of Turkestan and Thibet’ and ‘there were few places of interest in Armenia, Palestine, Greece, or Egypt with which he was unacquainted’. He thereby acquired ‘an amount of information on a wide and varied range of subjects which was little short of marvellous’.25Morning Post, 19 Aug. 1899.

At the 1841 election Pollington offered again at Pontefract, where his proposer lauded him as ‘a man of steady consistency and principle’ and cited his family’s local benevolence. An opponent of free trade,26Northern Star, 3 July 1841. Pollington promised to support ‘that great Conservative party, which had for a time been “lying under a bushel”’. Critical of the Melbourne ministry’s policy towards Syria and China,27Leeds Mercury, 3 July 1841. he also disapproved of the new poor law, particularly the clauses separating man and wife in the workhouse and prohibiting outdoor relief.28Northern Star, 3 July 1841. He topped the poll. It was reported that summer that he would marry Lady Jane Bouverie, eldest daughter of the earl of Radnor, but this did not materialise.29Morning Post, 8 June 1841. Instead in 1842 he married Lady Rachel Walpole, the ‘very wild and gay’ daughter of the earl of Orford.30Elizabeth, Lady Holland, to her son, 1821-1845 (1946), 219. They were depicted as Lord and Lady Gaverstock in Benjamin Disraeli’s 1844 novel Coningsby.31HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 20. Rumours that Pollington featured in yet another literary depiction, as the model for the character of Lord Fauconbridge in the 1850 novel, Leonard Normandale; or, The Three Brothers, were, however, refuted by the author, Pollington’s brother, the Hon. Charles Stuart Savile: Morning Post, 7 Jan. 1850.

Pollington, although not a regular speaker, was more active in this Parliament than previously, particularly as the corn laws came to the fore.32His committee service appears to have been confined to private bills, however: The Times, 24 Mar. 1846; Morning Post, 4 May 1846. It was, however, his low opinion of the late Whig ministry’s foreign policy which prompted his first contribution, 24 Aug. 1841, when he reiterated his concerns about their policy towards Syria. In May 1842 he came to the defence of his family and his constituency’s reputation when Thomas Duncombe, who had contested Pontefract in 1820, suggested that no candidate was elected there ‘without bribery’. Pollington contended that ‘the few persons who might still be disposed to accept a bribe were fast dying off’, 13 May 1842. He kept faith with his hustings professions on the poor law amendment bill, dividing in the minorities against its second and third readings, 17 June, 22 July 1842, and for discontinuing the commissioners and assistant commissioners, 27 June 1842. His concern for the poor led him to speak in support of William Ferrand’s motion for the allotment of waste lands, 30 Mar. 1843. Yet his benevolent instincts had their limits: in 1843 he brought a court case against Jane Parker, ‘a well-known begging-letter impostor’, complaining that MPs were ‘daily imposed upon in a similar manner’. He did, however, plead (unsuccessfully) for clemency when the magistrate imposed a three month sentence.33The Times, 13 July 1843. Pollington realised that Parker was a fraudster as the vicar of Pontefract whose endorsement she claimed to have received was no longer alive.

Pollington noted in 1846 that he had given ‘a firm, but... not a blind support to Her Majesty’s Government’, being unafraid to enter the opposite lobby.34Hansard, 24 Mar. 1846, vol. 85, c. 4. He was ‘perplexed’ as to why ministers did not back Lord Ashley on the ten hour factory day, 13 May 1844, a measure he endorsed after obtaining evidence during the Easter recess from manufacturers and doctors. He was in the minority against the third reading of the Dissenters’ chapels bill, 28 June 1844, and opposed the Maynooth grant at every stage in 1845. Although he would, ‘with great pain’, speak and divide against Peel on corn law repeal, 24 Mar. 1846, Pollington was not an unthinking or die-hard protectionist, and claimed never to have attended any protectionist meetings. He admitted that the corn laws were not ‘a fair system of taxation for the sake of revenue’, but saw their value in ‘preserving the country independent of foreigners’ and protecting agriculture. However, he hoped that by ‘one general agreement’ all countries might in future ‘trade together in the most free and unrestricted manner’, 12 Mar. 1844. He appeared to have accepted repeal’s inevitability by 1845, noting that he did not regard it ‘with all the alarm which was manifested by many hon. Members at his side of the House’, 26 May 1845. On the same occasion, he argued for increased colonial settlement as another means of resolving economic distress.35In 1850 Pollington subscribed £50 to a fund for female emigration: The Times, 24 Jan. 1850. He encouraged closer links with the colonies, 24 Mar. 1846, arguing that they would prove a more reliable source of corn in wartime than foreign powers. In this speech, acknowledged by the Leeds Mercury as ‘amongst the best’ made in favour of protection, he also rebuked the government for yielding ‘more to the agitation than to the arguments of the [Anti-Corn Law] League’.36Leeds Mercury, 4 Apr. 1846.

Pollington subsequently opposed Peel in the critical vote on the Irish coercion bill, 25 June 1846, and attended a banquet for Stanley and Bentinck the following month.37The Times, 11 July 1846. Attentive to local interests, he presented several constituency petitions and supported institutions such as the Pontefract British School and the Pontefract and Knottingley District Agricultural Association.38Leeds Mercury, 15 July 1843; York Herald, 19 Oct. 1844. He also gave a £50 prize for Pontefract races.39York Herald, 12 Sept. 1835. He was among the promoters of the Pontefract and Goole railway,40PP 1845 (577), xlvii. 42. presenting a petition in favour of its bill and appearing as a witness at the committee stage.41Morning Post, 6 Feb. 1845, 23 May 1845.

In December 1846 Pollington announced that he would step down at the dissolution, noting that ‘the circumstances which have compelled me most unwillingly to retire... are too well known... to require any explanation’.42Doncaster Chronicle, cited in The Times, 5 Dec. 1846. This undoubtedly referred to his father’s serious financial problems. The Leeds Mercury had reported a week earlier that Mexborough’s stock market transactions ‘have not only been very extensive, but also very disastrous’.43Leeds Mercury, 28 Nov. 1846. Costly building work at Methley, 1830-6, may have compounded his difficulties.44HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 19. The earl’s furniture, books, pictures, deer and farming stock were auctioned off in December 1846, fetching between £8,000 and £9,000.45Leeds Mercury, 28 Nov. 1846; Daily News, 15 Dec. 1846. He subsequently lived in a small house on his estate while letting Methley Hall to the Bradford industrialist, Titus Salt.46Leeds Mercury, 27 Dec. 1860. Faced with a requisition urging him not to retire, Pollington demurred, but stated that ‘should he outlive his respected father, gain possession of his estates, and be enabled to defray the whole of his father’s liabilities’, he would stand again.47Doncaster Chronicle, cited in The Standard, 12 Dec. 1846. His parliamentary attendance dwindled thereafter, although he voted against the Catholic relief bill, 14 Apr. 1847. The following month he applied at Marlborough Street magistrates’ court for a warrant against George Smythe, Conservative MP for Canterbury, ‘for having sent him a letter with intent to provoke him to commit a breach of the peace by fighting a duel’,48The Times, 17 May 1847. the dispute apparently revolving around the chairmanship of a forthcoming dinner at Eton.49Hull Packet, 21 May 1847. The magistrate deemed Smythe’s letter ‘sufficiently offensive’ to necessitate binding him over to keep the peace for twelve months.50The Times, 17,19 May 1847.

Pollington did consider offering elsewhere at the 1847 election, and got as far as putting his address to Canterbury’s electors in print, before withdrawing.51PP 1852-53 [1658], xlvii. 180, 341. It was claimed that he had offered to contribute financially towards his replacement. When a vacancy occurred at Pontefract in 1851, Pollington, then abroad, was nominated in his absence to thwart a Liberal walkover. Although his proposer, a Protectionist, claimed that Pollington would sit if elected, it transpired that the nomination had neither his nor his family’s consent.52Leeds Mercury, 15 Feb. 1851. Unsurprisingly he was defeated, and subsequently expressed ‘regret and surprise’ at these proceedings. He also clarified that he was not opposed to ‘free trade in its fair and honourable sense’, having voted for free importation of colonial corn. He had opposed repeal because it was ‘unjust to remove Protection until you had removed restriction from Agriculture’.53Leeds Mercury, 1 Mar. 1851. He declined subsequent invitations from Pontefract’s Conservatives to offer at the 1859 general election and for a vacancy that December, when he was at Rome and in ill health.54The Times, 14 Dec. 1859; Birmingham Daily Post, 18 Jan. 1860.

Poor health meant that Pollington was still in Italy when his father died in December 1860, and did not return home for the funeral.55The Standard, 4 Jan. 1861. He succeeded as fourth earl of Mexborough and to the Methley estates. By ‘strict economy and prudent management of estates by trustees’, the late earl had liquidated a ‘considerable portion’ of his debts, and Mexborough reportedly inherited an annual rental income of £20,000.56Bradford Observer, 10 Jan. 1861. In contrast with his father’s impoverished finances, by 1899 he had become ‘if not one of the largest, at any rate one of the richest, landowners in the country’,57Yorkshire Herald, 19 Aug. 1899. aided by the receipt of ‘extensive royalties’ from the coal on his estates.58Daily News, 19 Aug. 1899. His first wife had died in 1854, and his second marriage in 1861 ‘brought much wealth into the family’, including land at Surbiton, Kingston and Ditton, where much development took place.59The Standard, 19 Aug. 1899. In 1883 his estates totalled 6,969 acres in the West Riding, 1,769 in Hertfordshire, 527 in Nottinghamshire and 269 in Kent.60J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland (4th edn., 1883), 308. Mexborough had purchased the advowson of Thorner in 1865 for £1,500: York Herald, 4 Mar. 1865. In later years, Mexborough divided his time between London, Methley and Ditton Lodge, Thames Ditton, the last being ‘his favourite resort’.61Yorkshire Herald, 19 Aug. 1899. He also had a residence at Stockwell Hall, Billericay, Essex: Daily News, 19 Aug. 1899. He continued to patronise various causes in Yorkshire, subscribing £100 towards the restoration of Selby Abbey in 1890 and serving as president of the Yorkshire Rifle Association in 1891: Yorkshire Herald, 8 Feb. 1890, 25 Jan. 1892. He ‘spent his time largely among his books’, but retained his ‘wonderful vitality’ until an attack of influenza a few years before his death.62North-Eastern Daily Gazette, 18 Aug. 1899.

On the duke of Northumberland’s death in January 1899, Mexborough became the sole survivor of the unreformed Commons.63Leeds Mercury, 4 Jan. 1899. He died at Brighton that August.64The Times, 19 Aug. 1899. He was succeeded in his titles and the Methley estates by his only son from his first marriage, John Horatio Savile (1843-1916), Conservative candidate for Pontefract in 1872 and 1874.65Ibid. Some sources give John Horatio as John Horace. He left estate valued at £340,501 6s. net. The rest of his landed property passed to the elder son of his second marriage, John Henry (1868-1945), who became 6th earl of Mexborough when his half-brother died. His younger son, George, received bank stocks, and two nephews received £5,000 apiece in Lancashire and Yorkshire railway debentures.66Morning Post, 4 Jan. 1900. Mexborough had converted to the Catholic faith of his second wife in 1894. She predeceased him in December 1898 and he was buried alongside her at the Catholic chapel of St. Raphael, Kingston-on-Thames.67G.E.C., The complete peerage, viii. 686; Morning Post, 22 Aug. 1899. Their younger daughter, Anne, widow of a German prince, was an early aviation enthusiast who died in 1927 while attempting to be the first female passenger to fly across the Atlantic.68The Times, 1 Sept. 1927, 31 Dec. 1927.