DUNCOMBE, Hon. Arthur (1806-1889), of Bishop Field, nr. Scrooby, Notts. and 24 Arlington Street, London; later of Kilnwick Percy, Pocklington, Yorks. and 84 Brook Street, London; later of 22 Grosvenor Square; later of 58 Grosvenor Street, London.

‘A man of character irreproachable’, Duncombe spent over thirty years as a Conservative MP, initially for East Retford, and then for Yorkshire’s East Riding.1Hull Packet, 3 Apr. 1857. A naval officer, he served as a lord of the admiralty in Derby’s 1852 ministry, and continued to make well-informed contributions on naval questions thereafter.

Duncombe was the second surviving son of Charles Duncombe, of Duncombe Park, Yorkshire, who had represented four different constituencies as a Tory before being created Baron Feversham by Lord Liverpool in 1826. He entered the navy aged 13. In 1830, by which time he had reached the rank of commander, he joined his older brother William in the Commons, being elected for East Retford on the interest of his father’s friend, the duke of Newcastle.2HP Commons, 1820-32, iv. 969. His father spent £7,800 that year buying estates at Scrooby and Ranskill, near Retford,3J. Raine, History and antiquities of the parish of Blyth (1860), ch. 7 [accessed via http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/monographs/blyth1860/chapter7.htm] and Duncombe built ‘a large new house’ at Bishop Field, near Scrooby.4W. White, History, gazetteer, and directory of Nottinghamshire (1832), 443. A ‘violent Ultra’ Tory, he was defeated in 1831 and did not offer in 1832, instead returning to naval service.5HP Commons, 1820-32, iv. 969. In 1833 he commanded the Champion in the Mediterranean.6The Standard, 8 Apr. 1833; Morning Post, 28 Oct. 1833. Promoted to captain in 1834, he ended his career afloat that year.7Morning Post, 8 Feb. 1889.

In December 1834 Duncombe agreed to stand again at East Retford.8Nottingham Journal, cited in The Standard, 31 Dec. 1834. He wished to strengthen the constitution by carefully repairing its ‘decayed’ elements and was ‘an enemy to free trade’.9Parliamentary test book (1835), 50. He secured the second seat behind the Liberal incumbent. He topped the poll at the 1837 general election, the last occasion on which he faced a contest. He was re-elected unopposed in 1841, at the October 1841 by-election following his receipt of a household appointment, and in 1847, remaining a staunch protectionist throughout.

Virtually silent in the chamber as East Retford’s representative, Duncombe spoke only on the Chester and Holyhead railway bill, 27 May 1850, after serving on the related committee. Other than the 1841 inquiry into the West India mail,10PP 1841 sess. 1 (409), viii. 230. his committee service before 1852 was confined to private bills.11PP 1843 (624), xliv. 30; PP 1843 (624), xliv. 35; PP 1844 (628), xxxviii. 337; PP 1846 (723-II), xxxiii. 121; PP 1847 (757-II), xlvi. 213. Nor was he a regular presence in the division lobbies: in the 1849 session he voted in 24 out of 219 divisions.12Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849. He generally divided with the Conservatives, supporting Peel’s short-lived first ministry on the speakership, 19 Feb., the address, 26 Feb., and the Irish church, 2 Apr. 1835, although he voted against Peel to support Chandos’s motion for repeal of the malt tax, 10 Mar. 1835. He continued to divide in defence of the agricultural interest, opposing a fixed duty on corn, 16 Mar. 1837, and subsequent attempts to revise the corn laws. He voted consistently against the ballot and franchise extension, and opposed the appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Irish church, 15 May 1838. He divided with his party in confidence votes, 31 Jan. 1840, 4 June 1841. In 1840 he was involved with the establishment of the Conservative Club, sitting on its building committee.13Survey of London (1960), xxix & xxx. 472-86.

When Peel took office in September 1841 Duncombe solicited a household appointment, seeking not ‘emolument’, but an ‘honorary distinction’. He cited his ‘strong family support invariably given on behalf of Conservative principles’ and his four contested elections.14Hon. A. Duncombe to Sir Robert Peel, 9 Sept. 1841, Add. 40488, f. 74. Peel responded that he had already asked the queen to appoint Duncombe as a groom in waiting.15Sir Robert Peel to Hon. A. Duncombe, [?13 Sept. 1841], Add. 40488, f. 76. This position carried an annual salary of £335, and Duncombe also received £192 12s. 6d. per annum from his naval pay: Manchester Times, 10 June 1843. Duncombe added a caveat to his acceptance of office, based on his reservations about the poor law. (He had voted in the minority against the poor law amendment bill’s second reading, 8 Feb. 1841.) Although Peel stated that ‘all public measures brought forward by Government’ must be supported by those holding office, he reassured Duncombe that for the moment the ministry intended simply to extend the duration of the poor law commission, and agreed that Duncombe could take office on the understanding that if he could not ‘conscientiously support’ any future proposals, he could resign.16Sir Robert Peel to Hon. A. Duncombe, 22 Sept. 1841, Add. 40488, ff. 77-8. Duncombe divided for the poor law amendment bill, 17 June 1842. His activities at court included hunting with Prince Albert, and he attended the prince of Wales shortly after his birth in November 1841, but Peel rebuffed his suggestion that those present at this occasion receive some honour.17The Times, 5 Oct. 1842; Hon. A. Duncombe to Sir Robert Peel, 12 Nov. 1841, Add. 40497, ff. 297-8; Sir Robert Peel to Hon. A. Duncombe, 13 Nov. 1841, ibid., f. 299.

Duncombe routinely appeared in the division lobbies in support of the corn laws, and attended protectionist meetings in Yorkshire.18The Times, 24 Feb. 1844; Hull Packet, 13 Feb. 1846. He voted with Peel on the Dissenters’ chapels bill in 1844, and despite promising a local anti-Maynooth delegation that he would consider his position, he also backed the premier over the Maynooth grant in 1845.19A. S. Thelwall, Proceedings of the anti-Maynooth conference of 1845 (1845), 145. However, in February 1846 he resigned office, unable to endorse Peel’s repeal of the corn laws, which he duly opposed.20Hon. A. Duncombe to Sir Robert Peel, 5 Feb. 1846, Add. 40584, f. 280. He divided against the Catholic relief bill in 1846 and 1847, and the removal of Jewish disabilities in 1848. He maintained his protectionist sympathies with votes against repeal of the navigation laws in 1849, and divided for Disraeli’s motions for relief to the agricultural interest, 15 Mar. 1849, 13 Feb. 1851, and Cayley’s motion for repeal of the malt tax, 8 May 1851.

Although MP for East Retford, Duncombe was strengthening his Yorkshire connections.21Duncombe was on the provisional committee of the London and York railway in 1844, and was also a director of the Manchester and Lincoln Union railway: The Times, 22 May 1844; H. Tuck, The railway directory for 1847 (1847), 8. In 1837 he and his wife had inherited the manor of Pocklington and other Yorkshire properties from her father, and Duncombe later bought the manor of Barmby, which had previously belonged to her family.22W. Cudworth, Manningham, Heaton, and Allerton (townships of Bradford), treated historically and topographically (1896), 207-8; J. H. Turner, Ancient Bingley (1897), 263; VCH E. Riding Yorks. (1976), iii. 133-47. He sold the manor house at Barmby and 36 acres of land to Sir Tatton Sykes in 1861, and sold Milner Field to Titus Salt for £21,000 in 1869. In 1840 he purchased the 1,600 acre Kilnwick Percy estate near Pocklington for £88,000.23J. D. Hicks (ed.), The journal of Joseph Robinson Pease 1822-1865 (2000), 110; J. Markham (ed.), The diary of an honourable Member. The journal of Henry Broadley, M.P. 1 January, 1840 to 17 March, 1842 (1987), 52; Morning Post, 31 July 1840. His holdings in the East and North Ridings totalled 8,302 acres in 1883.24J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland (4th edn., 1883), 143. Of this property, 4,483 acres was in the East Riding: J. T. Ward, East Yorkshire landed estates in the nineteenth century (1967), 45. On his father’s death in 1841 he inherited estates at Scrooby and Ranskill in Nottinghamshire,25Raine, History and antiquities of Blyth, ch. 7. together with £100,000,26HP Commons, 1820-32, iv. 970. but he sold his Nottinghamshire estates to Viscount Galway around 1856, once his political interests had shifted to the East Riding.27Raine, History and antiquities of Blyth, ch. 7.

In March 1851 Duncombe was approached by the East Riding’s Conservatives after one of their MPs, Henry Broadley, indicated that he would retire at the dissolution. However, fears that his successor at East Retford would be a Peelite prompted Duncombe to decline this overture.28Hicks, Journal of Joseph Robinson Pease, 185. In the event, his place would be filled by his Protectionist nephew. When Broadley died that August, Duncombe initially refused to contest the vacancy,29Ibid., 189; Hull Packet, 29 Aug. 1851. but as nobody was willing to keep the seat warm for him until the general election, he took the Chiltern Hundreds, 12 Sept., to offer at the by-election.30Leeds Mercury, 11 Oct. 1851. He was elected unopposed in October 1851, and never faced a contest for the East Riding. On the hustings he condemned the ‘reckless’ repeal of the corn laws and the ‘misery and loss’ caused by repeal of the navigation laws, stating that he wished to restore ‘a moderate degree of protection’.31The Times, 8 Oct. 1851. In March 1852 he was re-elected following his appointment as a lord of the admiralty in the new Derby ministry. For his ‘own ease and comfort’ Duncombe would have refused office, but felt this would have been ‘unworthy’ given Derby’s failure to form a ministry in 1851 ‘from the reluctance of individuals to aid him’.32The Times, 8 Mar. 1852. Duncombe was appointed as fifth lord of the admiralty: The Standard, 28 Feb. 1852. For discussion of the board of admiralty on which he served, see A. Lambert, ‘The ultimate test: the fourteenth earl, the admiralty and the ministry of 1852’, in G. Hicks (ed.) Conservatism and British Foreign Policy, 1820-1920 (2011), 43-4. Although he declared his political views unchanged, he concurred with Derby that the question of protection should be settled at a future election.33The Times, 10 Mar. 1852. At that year’s general election his election address promised support for ‘all measures tending to relieve and encourage the landed interest’, but he was ‘silent’ on protection on the hustings.34Hull Packet, 25 June 1852; Leeds Mercury, 17 July 1852. With many friends and neighbours in the constituency being Catholics, the Maynooth grant was a tricky issue for Duncombe, but he endorsed an inquiry.35Hull Packet, 16 July 1852.

Duncombe described himself in 1852 as ‘not a man of words’, noting that ‘the early part of my life was spent more in deeds than in words’.36Ibid. However, his brief stint at the admiralty marked the beginning of a new phase in his parliamentary career. Although never a regular attender – he was present for 47 out of 257 divisions in 1853 and 39 out of 198 in 185637Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J. P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions in the House of Commons during the last session of Parliament (1857), 22. – he made intermittent contributions to debate, principally on admiralty matters and the navy estimates, prompted by the increased significance of these questions in the 1850s. Duncombe acted as a spokesman for the board of admiralty on issues including a reserve steam navy, 30 Mar., and the militia bill, 26 Apr. 1852. As a former member of the board, he spoke on dockyard appointments, 19 and 29 Apr. 1853, and served on and gave evidence to the related select committee.38PP 1852-53 (511), xxv. 330. He also testified before the inquiry into the specific case of the dismissal of a naval lieutenant: PP 1852-53 (803), xxv. 470. His other committee service in this Parliament included an inquiry into transport links between London and Dublin.39PP 1852-53 (747), xxiv. 617. He also served on the committee on the lunatic asylums (Ireland) (advances) bill: PP 1854-55 (262), viii. 533. His name appeared with his East Riding colleague Lord Hotham on a bill regarding arrangements by magistrates for prisoners to be confined in neighbouring counties and towns, but he did not speak on this measure, which passed in 1853.40PP 1852-53 (939), civ. 42. The measure was passed as 16 & 17 Vict., c. 43. He was absent from the division on free trade, 26 Nov. 1852, but divided for Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1852, and against Gladstone’s, 2 May 1853. He routinely opposed the removal of Jewish disabilities and the abolition of church rates, and supported Richard Spooner’s anti-Maynooth motions, 23 Feb. 1853, 15 Apr. 1856. He voted for Disraeli and Roebuck’s critical motions on the conduct of the Crimean war, 29 Jan., 25 May and 19 July 1855, and backed Cobden’s censure motion on the Canton question, 3 Mar. 1857.

At the 1857 election Duncombe asserted that his vote on Canton reflected ‘disapprobation’ of Bowring’s actions rather than a lack of confidence in Palmerston,41The Times, 3 Apr. 1857. but emphasised that any future support for Palmerston would depend on the measures he introduced. His absence from the vote on Spooner’s anti-Maynooth motion, 19 Feb. 1857, had prompted concern among his supporters, but they were mollified by Duncombe’s reassurance that his absence was inadvertent.42Hull Packet, 3 Apr. 1857. Duncombe subsequently voted for the anti-Maynooth motions of Spooner, 29 Apr. 1858, and Whalley, 4 June 1861.

Duncombe continued to make sporadic interventions on military matters and to vote generally with the Conservatives, although he rallied behind Palmerston in the critical division on the conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858. He declined to return to the admiralty in Derby’s 1858-9 ministry, informing his constituents that he had been ‘asked to serve under a gentleman who was inferior in rank in the service’, which was ‘incompatible with his own inclinations or the etiquette of the profession’.43The Times, 5 May 1859. He voiced the same sentiments in debate, 12 Apr. 1859, when Sir John Pakington, first lord of the admiralty, professed surprise at learning this was why Duncombe had refused office. When Sir Charles Napier moved for a royal commission on the manning and management of the navy, Duncombe endeavoured to secure a select committee instead, 18 May 1858, and continued to take an interest in this question thereafter. He served on the select committee on harbours of refuge in 1858.44PP 1857-58 (344), xvii. 204. He also chaired a private bills committee: PP 1857-58 (0.101), xlvi. 783. Duncombe divided for the Derby ministry’s reform bill, 31 Mar. 1859, entering the opposite lobby from Hotham. He subsequently explained on the hustings that he had told the Conservative whips that they should not rely on his support, because he disliked the fact that the measure disfranchised borough freeholders in the counties and left the borough franchise unaltered.45York Herald, 7 May 1859. However, he disdained Russell’s ‘factious motives’ in opposing it and voted with Derby, hoping to improve the bill in committee.46Leeds Mercury, 7 May 1859.

The 1859-65 Parliament was Duncombe’s most active, during which he made several contributions on naval issues. He protested on one occasion that ‘naval questions never got due consideration, for they were always brought forward at the fag-end of the Session’, producing ‘a great many mistakes and much extravagance’.47Hansard, 29 July 1861, vol. 164, c. 1776. In December 1859 he presented a memorial to the admiralty from 500 lieutenants outlining their grievances regarding the system of promotion and retirement.48PP 1863 (501), x. 471-2. Several of his speeches reflected his practical interest in operational matters such as troop transport, naval recruitment and gunnery. He drew attention to the problem of dry rot in naval vessels, recalling how he had ‘poked the end of his umbrella through the bottom’ of gunboats at Haslar, 11 May 1860. His major concern, however, was to secure an inquiry into the constitution of the board of admiralty and its duties, for which he first moved, 12 June 1860. With difficulties in manning the fleet and increased expenditure as new technologies were introduced, Duncombe argued that the board must be reformed. He withdrew this motion, which faced opposition due to the lateness of the session and the fact that several committees on naval questions were already underway. (Duncombe himself sat on inquiries into the manufacture of anchors for the merchant navy;49PP 1860 (182), viii. 346. transport for troops, convicts, emigrants and supplies;50PP 1860 (480), xviii. 4. He sat again on this committee in 1861: PP 1861 (380), xii. 378. and the allegedly defective state of several gunboats.51PP 1860 (545), viii. 2.) When he renewed his motion the following year, he bemoaned the ‘want of courtesy’ of Sir John Pakington in giving notice of a similar one.52Hansard, 1 Mar. 1861, vol. 161, c. 1240. Pakington had asked Disraeli whether he should take the lead on this question, as Duncombe’s ‘are not quite the hands it sh[oul]d be in’, but yielded to Duncombe, whose motion was carried, 1 Mar. 1861.53M. G. Wiebe et al. (eds.), Disraeli letters, 1860-1864 (2009), viii. 100n.

Despite Duncombe’s endeavours, the committee failed to make a substantive report.54PP 1861 (438), v. 6. One of its members, Sir Henry Willoughby, blamed this on the extra duties assigned after its appointment – Palmerston moved that it should also inquire into promotion and retirement in the navy, 12 Mar. 1861 – and the ‘anomalous position’ of Duncombe in securing an inquiry he did not then chair.55Hansard, 24 June 1863, vol. 171, c. 1399. Duncombe declined to move for the committee’s reappointment in 1862, protesting that he had been hampered by ‘not having the weight and authority of the chair, in conducting the business he desired to bring before it’, 10 Mar. 1862. He rebutted Palmerston’s suggestion that the committee had not reported because the evidence was so favourable to the present system, arguing that with admiralty officials ‘largely represented’ and the addition of Liberal members by Palmerston, the inquiry was inevitably ‘a complete failure’, 24 Feb. 1863.56See J. F. Beeler, British naval policy in the Gladstone-Disraeli era, 1866-1880 (1997), 44, which notes that Duncombe ‘had been unhappy with [the committee’s] composition and with the evident efforts of the government to hamper its investigation’. Duncombe’s other key contribution in this Parliament was to second William Schaw Lindsay’s successful motion that the government act on the House’s resolution of 19 June 1860 to implement the recommendations of the 1858 inquiry on harbours of refuge, 6 May 1862.57His name appeared in 1863 with those of Sir John Hay and Sir James Elphinstone on a bill regarding navy prize agents, but he did not contribute to the debates on this measure, which passed that session as the Navy Prize Agents Act (26 & 27 Vict., c. 116): PP 1863 (219), iii. 152.

Seeking re-election in 1865, Duncombe expressed his support for seeing the franchise ‘extended but not degraded’,58Hull Packet, 21 July 1865. believing that ‘even working men and mechanics had in a great measure qualified themselves’.59York Herald, 15 July 1865. He moderated his views on church rates, endorsing a ‘fair and equitable’ settlement which would relieve other denominations from this ‘irksome annoyance’, but not prevent contributions to one’s own church.60Hull Packet, 21 July 1865. He was elected unopposed for the East Riding for a sixth time.

As one of the House’s longest serving members, Duncombe was placed on the chairmen’s panel for election committees.61PP 1867-68 (0.107), lvi. 56. He chaired the inquiry into the Hereford election petition and served on the Horsham election committee.62PP 1866 (255), x. 472; The Times, 18 Apr. 1866. He also chaired a committee on railway bills in 1866: PP 1866 (0.108), lvi. 590. He also sat on the inquiry into county financial arrangements.63PP 1867-68 (421), ix. 3. He divided against the Liberal ministry’s reform bill, 27 Apr. 1866, and generally voted with Disraeli on the major clauses of the Conservatives’ reform bill, although he entered the opposite lobby to support the partial disfranchisement of boroughs with under 10,000 inhabitants, 31 May 1867. He opposed Gladstone’s proposals on the Irish church, 3 Apr. 1868. With naval questions less prominent, Duncombe spoke less often. He made a handful of interventions in March 1866 on the cattle plague, which had affected his constituency.64The Times, 1 Feb. 1866. On 20 June 1867 he complained that another member had taken his usual seat in the chamber, observing that was difficult for those occupied in the committee rooms to reserve seats. Although some MPs left hats to claim their place, many did not ‘like to be exposed to all the cold drafts of the corridors and the Committee rooms without their hats’. His last known contribution was to ask whether the East Riding could have its own high sheriff, 2 July 1868.

In July 1868 Duncombe’s colleague Hotham announced his intention to retire at the dissolution. Two other Conservatives quickly entered the field, and with a misunderstanding about who should fill Hotham’s place, Duncombe resolved the impasse by offering instead for Leeds at the election, where he trailed in fifth place.65Hull Packet, 10 July 1868, 31 July 1868; The Times, 12 Oct. 1868. Although mooted as a candidate for the East Riding in 1880 and 1882, he did not seek a return to Westminster, stating on the latter occasion that he had ‘been out at grass’ too long.66The Times, 17 Mar. 1880; York Herald, 9 Nov. 1882. He served as chairman of the East Riding Conservative Association until 1884.67York Herald, 8 Oct. 1884. Appointed as chairman of the East Riding quarter sessions in 1865, he held that position until his death.68Hull Packet, 20 Oct. 1865. He presided over the Pocklington bench for many years, and served as Yorkshire’s high sheriff in 1874.69Bradford Observer, 5 Feb. 1874; York Herald, 9 Feb. 1889. Shortly before his death he was chosen as an alderman of the first East Riding county council.70The Times, 1 Feb. 1889. He took a ‘deep interest’ in agricultural questions, having served as president of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society for 1865.71The Times, 8 Feb. 1889; Farmer’s Magazine (July-Dec. 1866), xxx. 238. Among the charitable causes he patronised were the Royal Naval School, the Royal Naval Female School and the Humber training ship Southampton.72Hull Packet, 1 July 1870; Morning Post, 8 May 1871; The Times, 28 July 1880. A ‘staunch Churchman’, he provided funds to restore several local churches.73These included Sutton-on-the Forest, Kilnwick Percy, Allerthorpe and Barmby Moor: York Herald, 2 Oct. 1877, 9 Feb. 1889.

Duncombe died at Kilnwick Percy in February 1889, having suffered for some time from a ‘constitutional complaint’.74York Herald, 9 Feb. 1889. He was buried at St. Helen’s, Kilnwick Percy,75York Herald, 16 Feb. 1889. and a window was dedicated to his memory at Beverley minster.76N. Pevsner & D. Neave, Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (2002), 293. He left a personal estate of £37,365 1s. 10d. He settled Kilnwick Percy and properties at Pocklington, Allerthorpe and elsewhere in the East Riding on his eldest son Charles Wilmer Duncombe (1830-1911), an army officer.77York Herald, 22 Apr. 1889. In 1863 Duncombe had inherited the manor of Sutton, near Easingwold from Lady Harland,78VCH N. Riding Yorks. (1923), ii. 196-202. and he bequeathed this to his second son Arthur (1840-1911), Conservative MP for the East Riding’s Howdenshire division, 1885-92, who later took the name of Grey.79York Herald, 22 Apr. 1889; The Times, 14 July 1911. He made provision for his other children and left his London residence at 37 Hill Street, Mayfair, to his second wife (d. 1917).80York Herald, 22 Apr. 1889; The Times, 24 Aug. 1917. In addition to the eight children noted above, Duncombe and his first wife had a stillborn daughter in 1844: Morning Post, 15 Mar. 1844. His second wife was the elder half-sister of his youngest daughter’s husband.