ELWES, John Payne (1798-1849), of Grove House, Essex and Stoke College, nr. Clare, Suffolk

Elwes, who sat very briefly as a Conservative MP for Essex North, was a descendant of a family renowned for its eccentricity and parsimony. His ancestor Sir Hervey Elwes (c. 1683-1763), after retiring as Member for Sudbury in 1722, had spent the rest of his life zealously accumulating vast wealth by depriving himself of any comforts, residing at Stoke College, Suffolk, ‘where the wind entered at every broken casement, and the rain descended through the roof’.1E. Topham, Life of the late John Elwes, Esq. (1790), 17; HP Commons, 1715-54, ii. 12. He was succeeded by his nephew John Elwes (1714-89), MP for Berkshire, 1772-84, who modelled his life on his uncle’s, becoming one of the country’s most infamous misers.2HP Commons, 1754-90, ii. 401-2. According to his contemporary and biographer, Edward Topham:

He would sit in wet clothes sooner than have a fire to dry them; he would eat his provisions in the last stage of putrefaction soon than have a fresh joint from the butcher’s; and he wore a wig for above a fortnight, which I saw him pick up out of a rut in a lane where we were riding.3Topham, Life of the late John Elwes, 29.

It has been suggested that John Elwes was later an inspiration for Charles Dickens’s Scrooge.4A. Gordon ‘Elwes, John (1714-1789)’, rev. A. McConnell, Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com. His personal estate of nearly £300,000 passed to his great-nephew, this Member’s father John Timms, who in 1793 took the additional name of Hervey-Elwes. Unencumbered by his relative’s eccentricity, Hervey-Elwes served with distinction in the British army, attaining the rank of lieutenant-general in June 1814.5W. A. Copinger, Manors of Suffolk (1909), v. 288. Elwes’s own army career appears to have been perfunctory. Joining the Royal York rangers in 1817, he moved to the half-pay list the following year.6A list of the officers of the army and of the corps of the royal marines (1821), 617. On his father’s death in 1824, Elwes inherited the family estates at Grove House in Essex and Stoke College, Suffolk, residing at the former, where he pursued the life of a country squire. He was an active magistrate for Suffolk and Essex, and served as high sheriff of the latter in 1826.7Copinger, Manors of Suffolk, 288; T. Wright, The history and topography of Essex (1836), 616; History, gazetteer and directory of Suffolk (1844), 743.

In April 1835 Elwes accepted a requisition from local electors to stand as a Conservative for a vacancy at Essex North, created by the elevation of the sitting Member, the banker Alexander Baring, to the Lords. He received the unanimous backing of the North Essex Loyal and Conservative Association.8Essex Standard, 17 Apr. 1835. Although a popular figure in county life, he was far from a skilled public speaker, prompting the Conservative-supporting Essex Standard to reassure the electorate that Elwes was:

one of the good old John Bull school – plain speaking and sincere, and he possesses that sterling good sense which is of far more value in a legislator than the meretricious captivations of splendid eloquence.9Ibid.

In his address, he characterised himself as an unwavering friend to the agricultural interest and an unflinching defender of the established church, ready to combat ‘that restless spirit of Popish agitation’.10Ibid., 24 Apr. 1835. At the nomination he gave a short, prosaic speech, asserting that what he lacked in ‘oratory’ he made up for in the strength of his support for the Essex farmer. As if to prove his distinct lack of grandiloquence, when pressed by his Liberal opponents on the causes of agricultural distress, he simply responded ‘I cannot answer the question’.11Ibid., 1 May 1835. In a division dominated by the agricultural interest, though, his return was never in question and he was elected by a commanding majority.

Unsurprisingly, Elwes is not known to have spoken in debate and he does not appear to have sat on any select committees. He was a steady attender, however, and loyally followed Peel into the division lobby on the major commercial and ecclesiastical issues of the day. Reflecting his attachment to the rural interest, he voted for Chandos’s motion for an address on agricultural relief, 25 May 1835, and against Clay’s motion on the corn laws, 16 Mar. 1837, and the bonded corn bill, 28 June 1837.

With parliamentary life reportedly not to his liking, Elwes retired at the 1837 dissolution.12Ibid., 7 July 1837. He remained, though, active in local Conservative circles, attending the annual dinners of the Colchester and Essex Conservative Club and in 1847 he was still introducing candidates at election meetings.13Ibid., 30 Nov. 1838, 9 July 1847. He was also a prominent figure in county life, chairing meetings of the South Suffolk Agricultural Association and presiding over annual county balls.14Ibid., 5 Jan., 8 June 1838, 15 Nov. 1839, 31 Dec. 1841.

Elwes died at his Suffolk seat at Stoke College in August 1849.15Ipswich Journal, 1 Sept. 1849. The Essex Standard, 31 Aug. 1849, incorrectly states that he died on 18 Aug. 1849. He was succeeded by his eldest son, John Elton Hervey (1826-69). There is a small memorial to Elwes at St. John the Baptist church in Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk. The estate and family records of the Elwes family are held by the Suffolk Record Office at Bury St. Edmunds.16Suff. RO, HA 517.