COTTERELL, Sir Henry Geers, 3rd bt. (1834-1900), of Garnons, Herefordshire

A young baronet, Cotterell was a reluctant politician who represented Herefordshire’s Liberal interest for one short parliament. A loyal Palmerstonian, Cotterell singled out ‘the excellent appointments to the church made by Lord Palmerston’ for special praise.1Dod’s parliamentary companion: new parliament (1857), 169. His grandfather, Sir John Geers Cotterell (1757-1845), had represented Herefordshire as a staunch Tory, 1802-3, 1806-31, and remained active in county politics thereafter.2HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 507-8; HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 755-7. On the death of his older brother Sir John Henry Cotterell, 2nd baronet, in 1847, Cotterell inherited the encumbered family estate and the title. By a deed of distraint, 23 Aug. 1855, he secured himself as absolute owner of Garnons, the family seat.3Ibid., 757.

When Cotterell stood as Liberal candidate for Herefordshire at the 1857 general election, his opponents jibed that he had deserted his ‘hereditary traditions’ and was ‘young and inexperienced’.4Hereford Journal, 11 Mar. 1857. One elector complained that ‘we are totally uninformed as to what are the political opinions of the young baronet’.5‘An elector’, letter, Hereford Journal, 18 Mar. 1857. Proposed by the Whig chancellor of the exchequer Sir George Cornewall Lewis at the nomination, Cotterell adopted a Palmerstonian line on the hustings, but also declared support for an extension of the franchise.6Hereford Journal, 1 Apr. 1857. He topped the poll.

A lax attender, Cotterell is not known to have spoken in debate or served on any select committees while in the House. His support for religious liberty was reflected in his votes against Spooner’s anti-Maynooth motion and in favour of Jewish relief, 21 May, 15 June 1857. During his election campaign, Cotterell had refused to pledge support for the abolition of church rates, while conceding exemption for Dissenters. Once in Parliament, however, he backed Trelawny’s abolition bills.7Ibid. He flocked to Palmerston’s banner in the divisions on the government of India and conspiracy to murder bills, 18, 19 Feb. 1858. He was among those who favoured the abolition of the property qualification for MPs in 1858 but opposed the ballot and divided against the Derby government’s 1859 reform bill.

Cotterell retired at the ensuing general election ‘entirely from a disinclination to take any prominent part in public affairs’, he informed electors.8Hereford Times, 9 Apr. 1859. Always a reluctant parliamentarian, Cotterell only seems to have stood in 1857 due to the unwillingness or inability of other Liberal candidates to come forward. The rumoured cost of his contested election, estimated at £10,700 by one local observer, may also have deterred him from standing again.9‘The spirit of the golden valley’, letter, Hereford Journal, 13 Apr. 1859.

Cotterell served as high sheriff of Herefordshire in 1865. By the mid-1870s his 5,000 acre estate in the county yielded an annual rental of £8,000.10J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. D. Spring (1971 edn.), 107. In later years, he resided mainly in Brighton, having handed over Garnons to his only son John Richard Geers Cotterell (1866-1922), who became the 4th baronet on the death of his father in 1900.11Birmingham Daily Post, 27 Mar. 1900; Burke’s peerage (1949), 481-2. He left a personal estate sworn under £118,669.12National Probate Calendar, 27 Apr. 1900. The papers of the Cotterell family are held by Herefordshire Record Office.13Herefordshire Record Office, W69, AM32, AW33; NRA 27077 Cotterell.