WADDINGTON, Harry Spencer (?1781-1864), of 45 St. James’s Place, London and Cavenham Hall, Suffolk

Born at Bury St. Edmunds, Waddington was the eldest son of George Waddington, barrister, of Ely, who had served as high sheriff of Suffolk in 1784.1Morning Post, 16 Nov. 1784. His paternal grandfather, John, had also been a barrister. Following his father’s death in 1785, his mother, Caroline, married Samuel Kilderbee, a wealthy Suffolk cleric, and bore a son, Spencer Horsey, who took the surname de Horsey by royal licence in April 1832, as co-heir, with Waddington’s younger brother John, to the estate of their maternal grandfather. Spencer de Horsey sat for Aldeburgh and Orford in the pre-Reform Commons and for Newcastle-under-Lyme from 1837 to 1841. Waddington was admitted to St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1799, but did not matriculate, and, eschewing family tradition, declined to pursue a career in the law. Instead, he appears to have dedicated his energies to agricultural improvement. In 1806 he joined the board of the Bedford level corporation, which was responsible for the drainage of the Fens, and became a prominent member of the important Suffolk Agricultural Society.2S. Wells, The history of the drainage of the great level of the Fens (1830), 511. He purchased Cavenham Hall, near Mildenhall in Suffolk, from Charles, 2nd Marquess Cornwallis.3A. Page, A topographical and genealogical history of the County of Suffolk (1847), 830.

At the 1832 general election Waddington accepted, with ‘considerable reluctance’, a requisition from local Conservative electors to stand for Suffolk West, explaining that his ‘habits and mode of life’ were at odds with those of a politician. In his address he committed himself to defending agricultural protection, while insisting that he would be ‘directed by no party views’.4Bury and Norwich Post, 5 Dec. 1832. Indisposed for much of the canvass due to illness, he was comfortably defeated by two Reform candidates.5Ibid. Following the death of the sitting member, Robert Logan, in April 1838, however, he accepted an invitation to stand again for the division.6Essex Standard, 27 Apr. 1838. Described by a supporter as a ‘well-known and long-tried Conservative’, he presented himself as a ‘friend to the established church’ and an enemy of free trade in corn.7Bury and Norwich Post, 9 May 1838. He was returned unopposed.

A frequent attender, who is not known to have spoken in debate in his first Parliament, Waddington voted with the Conservative opposition on most major issues and opposed the continuance of the Maynooth grant, 23 June 1840. He backed Peel’s motion of no confidence in the Whig ministry, 4 June 1841. At the subsequent general election he zealously defended the corn laws, and announced that ‘I am a Conservative still, and always will be’.8Ipswich Journal, 10 July 1841. He was re-elected without opposition. In his first known contribution to debate, Waddington pressed the vice-president of the board of trade for information concerning a recent accident on the Eastern Counties railway, 5 Aug. 1845. Reflecting his interest in agricultural improvement, he was a member of the 1844 select committee on the middle level drainage and navigation bill.9PP 1844 (466), xiv. 375.

Waddington’s voting record during Peel’s second administration demonstrated an oppositional streak. Although he backed the premier’s sliding scale on corn duties, 9 Mar. 1842, and voted with him on the major clauses of the 1844 factories bill, he had a record of hostility on commercial and religious legislation. He divided against Peel on the ecclesiastical courts bill, 28 Apr. 1843, the sugar duties bill, 14 June 1844, and on the permanent endowment of Maynooth College, 18 Apr. 1845. He was one of a hardcore group of 46 MPs who voted to postpone the Maynooth bill, 2 June 1845. There is no evidence, however, of Waddington following the lead of the ultra Protestant campaigners led by Charles Newdegate, who left the Carlton Club to establish the National Club. His zealous commitment to agricultural protection undimmed, he voted against repeal of the corn laws at the critical third reading, 15 May 1846, and opposed Peel’s Irish coercion bill, 25 June 1846, the defeat of which brought down the beleaguered ministry. In March 1847 he moved the second reading of the rating of tenements bill, which aimed to relieve magistrates of the duty of issuing summons to those unable to pay their rates, but it was defeated by 87 votes to 39. This was his last known contribution to debate.10Hansard, 17 Mar. 1847, vol. 91, cc. 103-6. At the 1847 general election he assured his supporters that he had not ‘joined in the desertion’ from the Conservative party and called for the repeal of the malt tax. He also declared that he would ‘vote against any measure calculated to give encouragement to Popery’, and was returned unopposed.11Bury and Norwich Post, 21 July, 4 Aug. 1847.

A frequent attender in his third Parliament, Waddington’s votes reflected his commitment to agricultural relief and his suspicion of extending religious liberties.12In the 1849 session he was present for 67 out of 219 divisions: Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849. He opposed Russell’s Jewish disabilities bill, 17 Dec. 1847, and supported David Urquhart’s motion criticising the government’s handling of the ecclesiastical titles bill, 9 May 1851. He backed a resolution for a committee of the whole House to consider agricultural distress, 21 Feb. 1850, and Disraeli’s motion to relieve distress of land owners, 13 Feb. 1851. He voted for repeal of the malt tax, 8 May 1851. He also remained hostile to the extension of free trade, backing Pakington’s censure of the government’s policy on sugar duties, 29 June 1848, and a motion to reconsider the corn laws, 14 May 1850. He was similarly mistrustful of parliamentary reform, opposing the ballot, 7 Mar. 1850, and the equalisation of the borough and county franchise, 27 Apr. 1852.

Re-elected without opposition at the 1852 general election, when illness prevented him from appearing in person, he voted against Villiers’s motion praising corn law repeal but backed Palmerston’s subsequent motion praising free trade, 26 Nov. 1852. Thereafter he followed Disraeli into the division lobby on most major issues, supporting his motion criticising the Crimean war, 25 May 1855, and Roebuck’s censure of the cabinet, 19 July 1855. He was present for 84 out of 257 divisions in the 1853 session, but with his health slowly declining, his attendance became less regular, and he voted in only 35 out of a possible 198 divisions in 1856.13Daily 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), 18. He backed Cobden’s censure of the government over the bombardment of Canton, 3 Mar. 1857.

Waddington, now in his late seventies, had planned to retire at the 1857 general election, but he acquiesced to the feelings of his closest supporters, who insisted that he stood again. In his address he condemned Palmerston’s ministry for the ‘cruel attack on China’.14Bury and Norwich Post, 17 Mar. 1857. The Suffolk Liberals, believing that Waddington was too old and ‘too much of a party man’, sought to secure a candidate to oppose him, but their efforts came to nothing, leaving Waddington to be returned without opposition for a fifth consecutive time.15Ibid., 24 Mar., 31 Mar. 1857. He opposed the Liberal ministry’s government of India bill, 18 Feb. 1858, and Palmerston’s conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858. He voted for the short-lived Derby ministry’s reform bill, 31 Mar. 1859, and following its defeat, there was little surprise when he retired at the subsequent dissolution.

Waddington, whose health continued to decline, largely withdrew from public life after he left the Commons. He died at Cavenham Hall in February 1864 and was remembered as a ‘fine old English gentleman’.16Ibid., 1 Mar. 1864. He left effects valued at under £25,000 and was succeeded by his eldest son, also Harry Spencer (1816-95), a captain in the rifle brigade.17England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, 14 Apr. 1864.