KERRISON, Edward Clarence (1821-1886), of Brome Hall, Suffolk and 40 Piccadilly, London

Kerrison, who by the 1860s was regarded as the ‘leading man’ in Suffolk’s public business, replaced his father as Member for Eye at the 1852 general election.1 Ipswich Journal, 21 July 1866. Although he often spoke of his freedom from party ties and once described himself as a ‘Liberal Conservative’, his political loyalties lay indisputably with Derby and Disraeli.2Ibid., 15 July 1865. The family’s prominent position in county life had been established by his paternal grandfather, Matthias Kerrison, who made his fortune during the Napoleonic wars trading in coal, corn and timber from Bungay quay.3Ibid., 13 July 1886. The wars with revolutionary France also cemented the reputation of his father, Edward, who served with distinction in the Peninsular campaigns. As Member for Shaftesbury, 1813-18, and Northampton, 1818-20, Kerrison’s father was a loyal anti-Catholic Tory and was made a baronet by Lord Liverpool at the coronation in 1821. The purchase of the Brome Hall estate from the 2^ndMarquess Cornwallis in 1823 gave his father a controlling interest in the borough of Eye, which he represented from 1824 until 1852.4 HP Commons, 1820-32, v. 910-12. After leaving Eton, Kerrison spent most of his twenties at Brome Hall, where he established himself as a skilled agriculturalist and became a prominent member of the important East Suffolk Agricultural Society.5 Ipswich Journal, 13 July 1886.

At the 1852 general election Kerrison came forward in place of his father, whose increasing infirmity had brought to an end a long though undistinguished parliamentary career. In his address Kerrison described himself as ‘essentially a Conservative’, but took care to highlight his support for progressive social and political change.6Ibid., 26 June 1852. His campaign speeches reflected a concern with the plight of the tenant farmers and agricultural labourers, though he asserted that he would not vote for the restoration of agricultural protection. He was less clear about his position on the malt tax, which was detested by the local rural interest, explaining that he needed to look further into the cost of its abolition.7Ibid., 17 July 1852. Unsurprisingly, he was elected without a contest. On his father’s death in March the following year, he succeeded to the baronetcy and estates. He also assumed his father’s mantle as an important figure in East Suffolk’s parliamentary elections, playing a particularly crucial role in shoring up the Conservative vote to return the attorney-general Sir Fitzroy Kelly in 1859.8Ibid., 13 July 1886.

Kerrison made an inauspicious start to his career in the Commons. He was present for only 13 out of a possible 258 divisions in his first session, and his attendance had only marginally improved by 1856, when he was present for 25 out of 198 divisions.9 Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; 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), 19. He is not known to have sat on any select committees. In one of his first votes, he backed Palmerston’s motion praising free trade, 26 Nov. 1852, but thereafter generally followed Disraeli into the division lobby, though he opposed him by voting against Roebuck’s censure of the cabinet over its handling of the Crimean War, 19 July 1855. He was absent from the vote against a rise in malt duty, 9 May 1854. He supported Cobden’s censure of the government over the bombardment of Canton, 3 Mar. 1857, explaining at the 1857 general election that there was no justification for resorting to ‘cruel and expensive’ measures.10 Bury and Norwich Post, 31 Mar. 1857. Returned unopposed, he made a handful of contributions in the 1857-58 session to debates concerning the reformatory schools bill, arguing that the power of sending juveniles to these institutions should be vested in a judge rather than the managers of the school and that the ratepayers should bear some burden of the costs.11 Hansard, 20 Feb. 1857, vol. 144, c. 1030; 12 June 1857, vol. 145, c. 1666; 9 July 1857, vol. 146, c. 1160, 1166. These brief but measured interventions, his only known speeches in the Commons, reflected his strong interest in reformatory schools, which included establishing one at Thorndon, five miles south of Eye.12 Bury and Norwich Post, 31 Mar. 1857.Although on the hustings in 1857 he had expressed his determination to ‘act independently’, he continued to vote with Disraeli and loyally backed the short-lived Derby ministry’s reform bill, 31 Mar. 1859, despite his opposition to depriving borough freeholders of their county vote.13Ibid., 31 Mar. 1857; Ipswich Journal, 16 Apr. 1859.

Re-elected unopposed in 1859, he consistently opposed Radical motions to equalise the borough and county franchise and was against church rate abolition, 14 May 1862, and the tests abolition (Oxford) bill, 16 Mar. 1864. He was in the minority for Sir Walter Barttelot’s motion for a reduction in the malt duty before any decrease in sugar duties, 14 Apr. 1864. His main activity during this period appears to have been lobbying for a short railway line from the Great Eastern station at Mellis to Eye, which was authorised by an 1865 Act of Parliament (28 & 29 Vict. c. 249), and opened two years later.14 Bury and Norwich Post, 20 June 1865. Reflecting later on the events of his third Parliament, he praised the Palmerston ministry’s policy of non-intervention in the American civil war and its handling of the Trent affair, when the Union’s removal of two Confederate diplomats onboard a British mail packet had sparked an international diplomatic incident. Though in favour of British neutrality, Kerrison admitted that his sympathies lay with the Confederate South, and predicted that the southern states would secede from the Union. He was more critical of the government’s policy towards Poland, which was threatened by Russian invasion, and on the Schleswig-Holstein question, asserting that the Liberal ministry’s initially strong rhetoric had not been matched by its subsequent actions.15 Ipswich Journal, 15 July 1865. He backed Disraeli’s motion criticising the government’s handling of the Danish war, 8 July 1864. In a change of emphasis,he admitted at the 1865 general election that he was ‘to some extent a party man’ and was re-elected without opposition for a fourth consecutive time.16 Ipswich Journal, 15 July 1865. He voted against the Liberal government’s reform bill, 27 Apr. 1866, and paired off for the Adullamite amendment in favour of a rating rather than rental clause, 18 June 1866.

In July 1866 Kerrison was approached by the county’s Conservative hierarchy to stand in a double by-election for Suffolk East, a more prestigious seat than the small borough of Eye.17Ibid., 14 July 1866.Kerrison, whose health had been steadily declining for some time, was further assured that he would not have to undertake a personal canvass.18Ibid., 21 July 1866. After accepting a signed requisition, he duly accepted the stewardship of the manor of Northstead, 19 July 1866, and came in unopposed with his nephew, John Henniker-Major, who it was later noted ‘could hardly have gone to Westminster better chaperoned’.19 Public men of Ipswich and East Suffolk (1875), 119. Kerrison’s health, however, failed to improve, and in February the following year he retired from the Commons, announcing that he no longer had ‘the strength equal to the will’ to attend to ‘the requirements of so large a constituency’.20 Bury and Norwich Post, 5 Feb. 1867.

Kerrison nevertheless continued to take an active part in the county’s parliamentary politics, chairing election committees and proposing candidates.21 Ipswich Journal, 13 July 1886. His main passion, though, was agriculture. Appointed president of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1865, he served the organisation with ‘indefatigable industry’, promoting advanced models in breeding and raising stock.22British farmer’s magazine (1865), 163-4. He was also a keen sportsman, though gout in his hands compelled him to relinquish hunting and shooting.23Ibid.

Kerrison died childless at Brome Hall in July 1886, having been seriously ill and unable to attend to any public duties for the previous three years.24Ibid. He left effects valued at £75,436 16s. 3d.25England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, 15 Feb. 1887. The baronetcy now extinct, his estates passed to his younger sister, Agnes Burrell, who in 1854 had married William Bateman-Hanbury, 2^nd Baron Bateman.26 HP Commons, 1820-32, v. 911. Kerrison’s papers are held by the Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich.27Suff. RO, Kerrison mss HA68.