GOOCH, Edward Sherlock (1802-1856), of Beacon Hill, Woodbridge, Suffolk and Benacre Hall, Suffolk

Gooch’s family name was said to have a ‘talismanic influence’ upon Suffolk’s agricultural interest, owing to his father’s reputation as a zealous protectionist.1Ipswich Journal, quoted in Morning Post, 27 Dec. 1845. Gooch was a descendant of William Gooch, governor of Virginia, 1727-49, who had been created a baronet in 1746, though the family’s wealth stemmed from the 3^rd baronet, Sir Thomas Gooch, who in 1761 had inherited from his uncle, Thomas Sherlock, bishop of London, extensive land and property in Birmingham.2W. A. Copinger, The manors of Suffolk: notes on their history and devolution (1908), ii. 9-10. Gooch’s father, Thomas, the 5^th baronet, was an anti-Catholic Tory who in a lengthy parliamentary career as Member for Suffolk had opposed parliamentary reform and defended the landed interest with equal vigour.3HP Commons, 1820-1832, v. 296-301. After leaving Westminster School, Gooch obtained a commission in the 14^th light dragoons in 1819, but retired eight years later at the rank of captain.4The record of old Westminsters (1928), i. 380. In 1826 his father had consulted Peel about a scheme to bring him forward for Aldborough, where Gooch’s brother-in-law Andrew Lawson had some influence, but the plan found little support.5HP Commons, 1820-1832, v. 299. Following his perfunctory career in the army, therefore, Gooch largely pursued the life of a Suffolk squire and served as a magistrate at the Woodbridge quarter sessions.6Ipswich Journal, 8 Feb. 1840. He was made a deputy lieutenant in 1844.7London Gazette, 24 May 1844.

In February 1846 Gooch was put up by the local Conservative hierarchy for a vacancy at Suffolk East created by the resignation of the sitting Member.8Ipswich Journal, 7 Feb. 1846. With Peel’s recent decision to back corn law repeal dominating the proceedings, Gooch, who suggested that the premier should have ‘left well alone’, launched a bombastic defence of the existing legislation, declaring that he supported ‘protection – the whole protection – and nothing but protection’.9Morning Post, 20 Feb. 1846. Such proclamations left one national newspaper in no doubt that he was ‘the chip off the old block’.10Daily News, 9 Feb. 1846. He was careful, though, to stress that agricultural and manufacturing interests were bound together, admitting that his family had greater interests in industrial Birmingham than rural Suffolk. Beyond proposing that certain seeds and oilcake be admitted into the country duty free, he offered little in the way of policy, but with no opposition forthcoming, he was elected without a contest.11Ibid.

Gooch voted against corn law repeal, 27 Mar. 1846, and divided against Peel in support of the factory bill, 22 May 1846, and against the Irish coercion bill, 25 June 1846, the defeat of which finally brought down the ailing ministry. At the 1847 general election Gooch insisted that his vote against repeal had been to protect ‘British industry’, not just agriculture, and dismissed free trade as ‘a dangerous and fool-hardy experiment’.12Ipswich Journal, 7 Aug. 1847. He also called for repeal of the malt tax, proposing a higher tax on property in its place, and, echoing his father’s anti-Catholicism, asserted that the Maynooth grant ‘only increased the desire of Irish Roman Catholics to overthrow Protestants’.13Ibid. He was elected unopposed.

Gooch’s suspicion of any extension of religious liberties was confirmed when he voted against the Roman Catholic relief bill, 8 Dec. 1847, and the removal of Jewish disabilities, 17 Dec. 1847. He also backed David Urquhart’s motion criticising the government’s handling of the ecclesiastical titles bill, 9 May 1851. His continuing distaste for the extension of free trade was reflected by his votes for Sir John Pakington’s censure of government policy on the sugar duties, 29 June 1848, and a reconsideration of the corn laws, 14 May 1850, and against the repeal of the navigation laws, 23 Apr. 1849. An occasional attender who was present for only 33 out of 219 divisions in the 1849 session, he consistently backed motions calling for the relief of agricultural distress and voted for repeal of the malt tax, 8 May 1851.14Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849. He was, however, a silent member and does not appear to have sat on any select committees during his decade in the Commons.

At the 1852 general election Gooch, who in December the previous year had succeeded his father as the 6th baronet, pledged his support to Derby’s ministry and accepted that there would be no re-imposition of a duty on foreign corn. His main concern now was the tax burden, quipping that ‘although John Bull was a good horse, he was at present over-weighted’.15Daily News, 15 July 1852. Returned unopposed for the third time, his attendance in the Commons became rarer, and in the 1853 session he was present for only 29 out of 257 divisions.16Ibid., 21 Sept. 1853. In 1856 he was present for 28 out of 198 divisions: 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), 18. He was absent from the divisions on Palmerston’s motion praising free trade, 26 Nov. 1852, and Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1852. He was present, though, for the critical votes on the Crimean War. He backed Roebuck’s motion for a select committee into the condition of the army, 29 Jan. 1855, Disraeli’s motion criticising the conflict, 25 May 1855, and Roebuck’s censure of the cabinet, 19 July 1855. He voted against church rate abolition, 5 Mar. 1856. In his last known vote, he was in the majority for the annual salary of a county court judge being £1,200 rather than £1,500, 11 July 1856.

Gooch died in harness at Benacre Hall, Suffolk, in November 1856. Compared to his father, he made little impact at Westminster and left no political legacy, but his obituaries praised his charitable nature.17Bury and Norwich Post, 12 Nov. 1856; Morning Post, 12 Nov. 1856. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, Edward (1843-1872), a magistrate and deputy lieutenant for Suffolk.