THELLUSSON, Frederick, 4th Baron Rendlesham [I] (1798-1852), of Rendlesham House, Suffolk

Frederick Thellusson, who succeeded to an Irish barony in 1839, represented Suffolk East in the Conservative interest for nine years, but was arguably best known as the grandson of the merchant Peter Thellusson (1737-1797), author of one of the most notorious wills in British legal history. The Thellussons were originally Huguenots who had fled from Paris to Geneva after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In 1761 Peter Thellusson had been sent to England to complete his education and was naturalised by an Act of Parliament in the same year. He had subsequently established himself as a merchant banker in London, and following a series of speculations on the stock exchange and investments in plantations in Grenada and Montserrat, had amassed a considerable fortune.1E. I. Carlyle, ‘Thellusson, Peter (1737-1797)’, rev. Francois Crouzet, Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com. He died in 1797, leaving a will that was considered by contemporaries to be absurd. He left £100,000 to his wife and children, but the remainder, valued at over £600,000, he assigned to trustees to be invested in land and left to accumulate during the lives of his sons, grandsons and great-grandsons living at the time of his death, at the end of which period the estate was to be divided equally among the three eldest male lineal descendants of his three sons then living. If there was no heir, the fund was to go towards the payment of the national debt. As there were no great-grandchildren alive in 1797 the trust was in practice limited to the life of two generations. The family challenged the validity of the will, but it was upheld by the lord chancellor in 1799 and in the Lords six years later, 25 June 1805. In 1800 an Act of Parliament, often known as the Thellusson Act, was passed prohibiting similar schemes of bequest.2P. Polden, Peter Thellusson’s will of 1797 and its consequences on Chancery law (2002), 135-8.

Peter Thellusson’s eldest son, Peter Isaac Thellusson, had been returned for Midhurst in 1795 as a supporter of Pitt, and went on to represent Malmesbury, Castle Rising, and finally Bossiney.3HP Commons, 1790-1820, v. 362-4. An unashamed peerage-hunter, he had repeatedly badgered Pitt for a title, and in 1806 had been created Baron Rendlesham in the Irish peerage, a controversial decision that was described by Lord Sidmouth as ‘an outrage to common decency’ and by Speaker Abbot as a source of ‘great offence’ to the Irish nobility and gentry.4Quoted in ibid. Thereafter he was widely known as ‘Rendle-sham’.5Ibid. In 1808 he was succeeded in the barony by his eldest surviving son, John, who, in turn, was succeeded by his younger brother William, this Member’s elder twin brother. On William’s death without issue, Thellusson succeeded as 4^th Baron and inherited the family estates at Rendlesham, near Woodbridge, Suffolk.

In April 1843 Rendlesham, following a requisition from a ‘very numerous and influential portion of Conservative electors’, stood for a vacancy at Suffolk East created by the death of the sitting Member.6Ipswich Journal, 8 Apr. 1843. The constituency, which was home to his Rendlesham estate, was known as ‘one of the most extensive agricultural districts’ in the country, and his campaign was strongly shaped by the vocal rural interest.7Morning Herald, reprinted in Essex Standard, 14 Apr. 1843. His original address, which gave only a very general commitment to maintaining the constitution and agricultural protection, failed to satisfy the local farmers, who lacked confidence in Peel’s leadership, so he published a second statement in which he pledged to oppose any bill to introduce American flour into Britain through Canada and declared that he was ‘unfettered by party feelings’.8Bury and Norwich Post, 12 Apr. 1843; Morning Chronicle, 18 Apr. 1843. He reiterated the latter point at the nomination, insisting that ‘I must go to Parliament independent’. Following a bitter campaign in which he repeatedly clashed with his Liberal opponent over the future of the corn laws, he was returned by over 1,000 votes.9Ipswich Journal, 22 Apr. 1843; Morning Post, 25 Apr. 1843.

True to his word, Rendlesham, who was a steady attender in his first Parliament, voted against the Conservative ministry’s Canada corn bill, 22 May 1843. His subsequent votes suggest that his desire to be ‘unfettered by party feelings’ was more than just rhetoric: he opposed Peel by dividing against the twelve hour day in factories, 22 Mar. 1844, for William Miles’s amendment to the sugar duties bill, 17 June 1844, and against the Maynooth grant, 3 Apr. 1845. Blighted by a ‘hesitation of speech’, he rarely contributed to debate.10Ipswich Journal, 10 Apr. 1852. In his two known speeches he warned that abolishing the corn laws would be a ‘disaster for the tenant farmer and the poor man’, 26 June 1844, and attacked Peel for ‘forcing’ through repeal without making an appeal to the country, 26 Mar. 1846. Unsurprisingly, he voted against the measure, 15 May 1846, and opposed the Irish coercion bill, 25 June 1846, the defeat of which finally brought down Peel’s ailing government.

At the 1847 general election Rendlesham poured scorn on Peel and declared that he was prepared to support a ministry led by Lord John Russell, preferring ‘an open foe to an insidious friend’.11Daily News, 6 Aug. 1847; Ipswich Journal, 7 Aug. 1847. He remained, though, implacably opposed to free trade and the Maynooth grant. Believing that agriculturalists required relief from the county rates, he called for lunatic asylums to be financed from the consolidated fund. He also supported repeal of the malt tax. Backed strongly by the local farmers and sections of the local Whig leadership impressed by his apparent freedom from party ties, he was re-elected without opposition.12Daily News, 6 Aug. 1847.

A less frequent attender in his second Parliament, Rendlesham’s votes reflected his continuing commitment to the agricultural interest.13In the 1849 session he was present for only 10 out of 219 divisions: Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849. He was in minorities for a reconsideration of the corn laws, 14 May 1850, relief for landowners, 13 Feb. 1851, and the repeal of the malt tax, 8 May 1851. Meanwhile, his support for Richard Cobden’s motion to reduce public expenditure, 26 Feb. 1849, was later praised by the Eastern Counties’ Agricultural Association, who thanked him for having had ‘the manhood, among the professed farmers’ friends, to stand alone’ and vote for the measure.14Bury and Norwich Post, 3 Dec. 1851. He chaired the 1847 select committee on the Chester and Holyhead railway bill and was an active member of the 1850 committee on the county rates and expenditure bill.15PP 1847 (531), xii. 63; PP 1850 (468), 3. Believing that the bill did not adequately address the burden which the costs of prisons, lunatic asylums and highways placed on the county rates, he voted with the majority of the committee in opposition to the proposed legislation.16Ibid., 4-12.

Significantly, it was in Rendlesham’s role as a county magistrate, rather than as a Member of Parliament, that he was most effective in reforming the funding of lunatic asylums. A prominent member of the visiting committee for the Suffolk lunatic asylum, he vociferously campaigned against the ‘great injustice’ done to the agricultural community by the high proportion of the county rates given to the asylum.17Ipswich Journal, 21 Oct. 1848, 20 Oct. 1849. In 1849 he authored a meticulous report which found that expenditure on the Suffolk lunatic asylum was twenty per cent higher than in Norfolk.18Ibid., 24 Feb. 1849. The report, which according to one newspaper showcased Rendlesham’s ‘remarkable talent for arithmetical calculations’, subsequently produced a retrenchment in the asylum’s budget.19Ibid., 6 and 27 Mar., 10 Apr. 1852.

By the beginning of 1852 Rendlesham’s health, which had been declining for some time, was ‘broken and past hope of recovery’ and in March that year he announced his intention to retire at the next general election.20Ibid. He died in harness at Rendlesham House the following month. He was succeeded in the barony by his only son, Frederick (1840-1911), who later represented Suffolk East as a Conservative, 1874-85.

Rendlesham was the second-to-last grandson of Peter Thellusson to die.21Polden, Peter Thellusson’s will, 229-31. On the death of his younger brother Charles in 1856 the notorious trust came to an end. On 9 June 1859, following a series of fresh litigation, it was decided in the House of Lords that the estate should be divided between Frederick, the fifth Baron, and Charles Sabine Augustus Thellusson (1822-1885), the grandson of this Member’s uncle, though owning to mismanagement and legal costs it was by then a relatively modest fortune.22Carlyle, ‘Thellusson, Peter’, rev. Francois Crouzet, Oxf. DNB. The estate records of the Barons Rendlesham are held by Suffolk Record Office.23Suff. RO HB 416.