PERRY-WATLINGTON, John Watlington (1823-1882), of 39 Lowndes Street, London and Moor Hall, Harlow, Essex

Perry-Watlington, described by a contemporary as having ‘an excellent heart and an eloquent tongue’, had only a brief parliamentary career, but his subsequent work on behalf of local institutions and national commissions ensured that he was remembered locally as ‘one of the most prominent and universally-esteemed of our Essex magnates’.1Essex Standard, 4 May 1859, 4 Mar. 1882. He was a direct descendant of the Perry family of shipwrights, who throughout the eighteenth century had played a central role in establishing Blackwall as the most important shipyard on the Thames. His great-grandfather, John Perry I (1713-71), was responsible for expanding the yard’s operations after he took over the family business in 1764, while his grandfather, John Perry II (1743-1810), oversaw the ambitious creation of the large Brunswick Dock, opened in 1790. In 1797 John Perry II largely withdrew from the family business, buying himself a country seat, Moor Hall, near Harlow, Essex, and serving as high sheriff in 1798. His eldest son, John Perry III, subsequently became a partner in the family firm, before selling his share to Sir Robert Wigram, MP for Fowey 1802-6, in 1805, thus ending the Perrys’ Blackwall connection.2‘Blackwall Yard: Development, to c. 1819’, Survey of London: volumes 43 and 44: Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs (1994), 553-65.

Thomas Perry, this Member’s father, was the fourth son of John Perry II. He worked for the East India Company in Bengal and was the only son to marry. His wife, Maria Jane, was the second daughter and co-heir of the barrister George Watlington, of Caldecote House, Hertfordshire. Born John Watlington Perry in 1823, this Member succeeded his father to the family estates in 1833, and took the additional surname Watlington by royal licence, 10 Apr. 1849. A Cambridge graduate, he was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1844 but was not called to the bar. He instead focused his energies on county life, and was appointed a magistrate in 1849 and served as high sheriff in 1855. Prior to entering the Commons he also became a manager of the Harlow reformatory school and a chairman of the committee of visiting justices to Chelmsford Prison.3Essex Standard, 4 Mar. 1882.

Perry-Watlington’s first and only parliamentary election campaign was beset by controversy. Brought forward by local Conservatives for Essex South at the 1859 general election, his alleged connection to the controversial Puseyite Alfred Poole dominated the contest. Poole, originally a curate at St. Barnabas, Pimlico, had his licence revoked in 1858 due to a scandal over allegations of improper questioning of women in the confessional. In 1859, with his appeal being considered by the privy council, he received vocal support from the Puseyite vicar of Perry-Watlington’s Harlow parish.4N. Yates, Anglican ritualism in Victorian Britain, 1830-1910 (1999), 71. Perry-Watlington was subsequently accused by his Liberal opponents of subscribing to Poole’s defence fund, an allegation the former strenuously refuted.5Morning Chronicle, 25 Apr. 1859. At election meetings he consistently denied that he supported the ‘peculiar doctrines’ of Puseyism, describing himself instead as a ‘sincere’ member of the Established church. He also made the maintenance of church rates the centrepiece of his campaign, arguing that the grievances of Dissenters were not of ‘a very extensive character’.6Essex Standard, 20 and 27 Apr. 1859; Morning Chronicle, 20 Apr. 1859. Explaining his political loyalties at the nomination, he declared:

If you divide politicians, as I see the Times does, into two great divisions – Conservatives and Liberals – then I say I am a Conservative. ... If you proceed further to arrange them into four divisions – Whigs, radicals, Tories, and Liberal Conservatives – I am a Liberal-Conservative.7Essex Standard, 4 May 1859.

Following an extremely bitter and personal contest, he was elected in second place, over 350 votes ahead of his Liberal opponent.

Despite his professions to be a ‘Liberal-Conservative’, Perry-Watlington followed Disraeli into the division lobby on the major issues of the day. A steady attender, he voted against the amendment to the address, 10 June 1859, and opposed Palmerston’s ministry on important economic issues, such as the commercial treaty with France, 24 Feb. 1860, and the equalisation of the customs and excise duty on paper, 6 Aug. 1860. He voted for Disraeli’s motion criticising the government’s handling of the Schleswig-Holstein question, 8 July 1864. He used his maiden speech to argue against the abolition of church rates, asserting that the proposed measure would ‘benefit a few by inflicting a great justice on the many’ and lead to the disrepair of the nation’s churches, 28 Mar. 1860. Thereafter he consistently voted against the measure. An occasional, though assertive speaker, he also pushed for the withdrawal of the Liberal government’s representation of the people bill on the grounds that there was insufficient statistical information to forecast what the effects would be of lowering the householder franchise, 7 June 1860. He consistently voted against radical motions to equalise the borough and country franchises. Echoing his continuing interest in penal reform, he was appointed to the 1865 select committee on the prisons bill.8PP 1865 (280), xii. 426.

The main topic of Perry-Watlington’s parliamentary contributions, however, was the proposed enclosure of Epping Forest, an ancient woodland that lay partly in his Essex South constituency. When first addressing the issue, he rejected a call for an inquiry into the legality of recent enclosures in the forest, insisting that, as landowners had enclosed land for public recreation, these enclosures had great public benefit, 3 Mar. 1863. Appointed to a subsequent select committee on the issue, he voted consistently (and often in the minority) against recommendations for the Crown to stop landowners enclosing areas of the forest.9PP 1863 (339), vi. 550-5. By the following year, however, he appeared to have modified his stance. Reflecting on the extent to which the population of the East End of London visited the forest, he now argued that the Crown should intervene to prevent further encroachment of the forest by enclosure, 3 June 1864.

At the 1865 dissolution Perry-Watlington announced his retirement from the Commons, explaining that, given his other commitments, he ‘could not perform his duties in a proper manner’.10Standard, 8 July 1865. Thereafter he remained active in the county’s parliamentary elections, chairing meetings and nominating candidates. At the 1874 general election he organised and presided at the Conservative party banquet at Chelmsford, given in honour of the return of ten candidates for the county’s seats.11Essex Standard, 4 Mar. 1882. In 1871 he was appointed one of four commissioners of Epping Forest, under the Epping Forest Act of that year. In the Commons Charles Dilke had tried to block his nomination, on the basis that he was subject to local influences, but his amendment was defeated by 137 votes to 75, 31 July 1871. In July 1877 he was made one of four new prison commissioners, under the provisions of the 1877 Prison Act, which centralised the running of the Britain’s prisons. With his health in serious decline, he resigned the post in February 1882.12Ibid.

Perry-Watlington died while staying at 2 Waterloo Crescent, Dover, in February 1882.13Ipswich Journal, 28 Feb. 1882. He was buried in the family vault at Harlow church and left effects valued at £110,681 10s. 5d.14England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, 1 May 1882. With all his children dying in infancy, his estates passed to his widow, Margaret, who died in 1886, and then to his nephew, Robert Wickstead Ethelston (1850-1914), a captain in the royal Welsh fusiliers.15Essex Standard, 4 Mar. 1882; VCH Essex, viii. 131-49. His papers are held by the Essex Record Office.16Essex RO, D/Des.