FINCH-HATTON, George James, Visct. Maidstone (1815-1887), of Eastwell Park, Kent

An ‘ardent votary of the turf’, Maidstone sat as a Conservative for Northamptonshire North between 1837 and 1841, and made several unsuccessful attempts to re-enter the Commons between 1852 and 1854.1The Times, 10 June 1887. His feisty temperament meant he was ill-suited to a parliamentary career, although his ‘chivalrous blood’ did provide some amusement to MPs during 1838, when he successfully moved for Daniel O’Connell to be charged with a breach of privilege.2B. Disraeli to S. Disraeli, 23 Feb. 1838: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1838-1841, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (1987), iii. 27.

Son of the outspoken peer, the 10th earl of Winchelsea (who had fought a duel with the duke of Wellington over the issue of Catholic emancipation in 1829), and styled Viscount Maidstone from 1826, Finch-Hatton was elected to parliament aged 22 after a customary aristocratic education at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained a second class degree in classics.3The Times, 10 June 1887. After graduating in 1835, Maidstone appears to have divided his time between London and Kent, where some tentative political activity prompted unsubstantiated rumours in early 1837 that he intended to come forward as a Conservative candidate for Canterbury.4Morning Post, 15 Feb. 1836; The Times, 30 Mar. 1837.

Later that year, Maidstone announced his intention to stand for Northamptonshire North, home to his father’s Kirby Hall estate.5G. C. Boase & J. Wolffe, ‘Hatton, George William Finch (1791-1858)’, Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com. He came forward on a joint ticket with the Conservative incumbent Thomas Maunsell, with whom he canvassed and organised his campaign through a joint election committee.6Northampton Mercury, 24 June 1837, 15 July 1837; Northampton Herald, 5 Aug. 1837. At the nomination, Maidstone gave an impassioned speech in which he became ‘hoarse with exertions’ when explaining his opposition to a government that he felt had been ‘goaded’ by ‘the whip of the arch agitator’ O’Connell. He concluded by vowing to defend the Church and the interests of agriculture if elected.7Northampton Mercury, 5 Aug. 1842. He was returned in second place, which he deemed as ‘one of the most glorious triumphs throughout the Conservative empire’.8Ibid, 12 Aug. 1842.

Maidstone’s attendance in the division lobbies was well below average during his short, four-year parliamentary career, and he later admitted that he had ‘thought more of amusement than attention to his duties’.9Daily News, 1 July 1852. He voted in 61 (7%) of a possible 905 recorded divisions, siding consistently with Peel and the Conservative whip, although he did vote in the small minority against the prevention of peers voting in elections, 17 Jan. 1840. He presented one petition to the Commons, from the Protestant Association opposing the Maynooth grant, 10 May 1838.

Maidstone’s major parliamentary intervention came in February 1838, when he successfully moved to charge O’Connell with a breach of privilege, following the latter’s public complaint about ‘foul perjury in the Tory committees of the House of Commons’.10The Times, 23 Feb. 1838. Maidstone took personal offence at O’Connell’s comments after having sat on the Salford election committee earlier that month, informing parliament that ‘his constituents ... would one and all consecutively spit in his face if he passed over such an aspersion’, 26 Feb. 1838.11T. Falconer, Cases of Controverted Elections determined in committees of the House of Commons in the second parliament of the reign of Queen Victoria (1839), 263-265; The Times, 7 Feb. 1838; B. Disraeli to S. Disraeli, 23 Feb. 1838: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1838-1841, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (1987) iii. 27. As well as turning the Commons into ‘something like a meeting of Bedlam or Billingsgate’, the episode secured Maidstone minor parliamentary celebrity status, and he was greeted as a guest of honour on a short tour of northern Conservative dinners in Salford, Leeds and Liverpool that April.12Maidstone to R. Peel, 1838, BL. Add. 40425, f.221; H. Reeve (ed.), The Greville Memoirs (1896), iv. 71; The Times, 18 Apr. 1838, 23 Apr. 1838, 25 Apr. 1838; P. Geoghegan, Liberator: The Life and Death of Daniel O’Connell, 1830-1847 (2010), 90-3. In his only other speech of substance, Maidstone assured the Commons that the ‘effect of the present system of Corn-laws, was to lower the prices, and to make them steadier’, 14 Mar. 1839. His final verbal contribution came during an unruly debate over the Irish registration of voters bill, when ‘in full dress, fresh from the Clarendon [Hotel]’, he demanded that O’Connell retract a statement that some members of the Commons had bellowed in a ‘beastly’ manner, 11 Jun. 1840 – Maidstone’s ‘beastly bellowing’ reportedly being the loudest on the Conservative benches.13B. Disraeli to S. Disraeli, 12 June 1840: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1838-1841, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (1987) iii. 275; Geoghegan, Liberator, 93-94, incorrectly suggests Maidstone had introduced the bill being debated. Not being ‘endowed with that peculiar temperament’ necessary for a Commons career, as The Times later put it, Maidstone made known his intention to retire in advance of the 1841 general election.14The Times, 10 June 1887.

As well as being his first full year in parliament, 1838 had been Maidstone’s first season on the turf and his captivation with every aspect of the sport was evident to a young Disraeli.15B. Disraeli to S. Disraeli, 6 Nov. 1840: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1838-1841, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (1987) iii. 104. He would go on to become one of the lesser-known nineteenth-century ‘Kings of the Turf’, although his breeding and riding skills were considered of ‘average merit’.16Thormanby, Kings of the Turf (1898), 4, 236; The Times, 10 June 1887, The Standard, 21 Sept. 1857. He was arguably more successful as a writer, contributing regular articles on sport, classics and politics to the Keepsake, Gentleman’s Magazine and Morning Herald amongst others, often under the pseudonym of John Davis. He also gained some repute as a poet, most notably publishing The Book of Job done into English Verse in 1860.17Earl of Winchelsea, The Book of Job done into English Verse (1860). Maidstone had married Lady Constance Henrietta Paget, reportedly under questionable circumstances in August 1846, ‘for variety, like his former amours’, according to one society observer.18M. A. Disraeli to B. Disraeli, 7 Aug. 1846: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1842-1847, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (1982) v. 247.

With a minority Conservative administration seeking to put forward as many candidates as possible ahead of the 1852 election, Maidstone made several unsuccessful bids to re-enter the Commons at the behest of Derby and Disraeli. In March 1852 he met Derby at Downing Street, following which he came forward for Newark. His address announced his opposition to the Maynooth grant and called for ‘reasonable protection for all the great interests’, but he retired following an unsuccessful canvass.19Standard, 17 Mar. 1852; Examiner, 8 May 1852, 29 May 1852. He then stood in June on the ministerial interest for Westminster, prompting ‘very great dissatisfaction’ among several members of the Carlton Club, who were wary of his reputation on the turf. This initially led to Maidstone’s withdrawal.20Morning Chronicle, 18 June 1852; Morning Advertiser, 17, 18, 22, 26 June 1852. However, within days of a third Liberal candidate coming forward for the borough, and hopeful of splitting the Liberal vote, he announced his intention to offer again.21B. Disraeli to Lady Londonderry, 26 June 1852: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1852-1856, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (2004) vii. 498-9; Morning Advertiser, 26 June 1852; Morning Chronicle, 1 July 1852. On the hustings he reportedly received a ‘cordial reception’ from the ‘well-dressed portion of the crowd, but was assailed by a storm of yells and hisses from the mob’. He confirmed an apparent change of heart over free trade, terming his opponents’ insinuations that he was a protectionist who wished for ‘dear bread’, ‘mere cant’.22Morning Post, 1, 8 July 1852. Maidstone polled third in the ensuing contest, 383 votes behind his nearest Liberal rival.

After losing at Westminster it was rumoured that Maidstone would stand for Middlesex in 1852, but this never transpired.23Blackburn Standard, 14 July 1852. He subsequently came forward as a Conservative candidate for a by-election in Cambridge in August 1854, after the borough’s 1852 election (which returned two Conservatives) had been declared void. Maidstone vowed to ‘refute the accusations of those enemies who have attempted to disfranchise the borough’, but polled third in a close contest behind two Liberal candidates after a second Conservative candidate, who was considered internally as a ‘conceited flippant blackguard lawyer’, insisted on standing.24F. Villiers to B. Disraeli, 18 Aug. 1854: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1852-1856, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (2004) vii. 360; Cambridge Chronicle, 5 Aug. 1854. After two years of electoral rejection, Disraeli wrote, ‘Ld Maidstone is much annoyed at his unexpected failure [at Cambridge]. He is doomed always to come off second best’.25B. Disraeli to Lady Londonderry, 21 Aug. 1854: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1852-1856, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (2004) vii. 359-60.

In early 1855 Maidstone became embroiled in the controversy surrounding his friend, the MP for Rochester, Francis Villiers, who it transpired, had circulated several forged gambling bills of £1,000 under Maidstone’s and several others names before fleeing the country.26B. Disraeli to S. Bridges, 13 Apr. 1855: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1852-1856, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (2004) vii. 417-8; The Times, 11 Apr. 1855. A court judgement later that year implicated Maidstone in the controversy, putting an end to any lingering electoral ambitions.27B. Disraeli to H. Padwick, 5 Aug. 1855, B. Disraeli to S. Bridges, 9 Aug. 1855, B. Disraeli to W. Joliffe, 22 Nov. 1855, B. Disraeli to S. Lucas, 2 June 1856, 8 Nov. 1856, 12 Nov. 1856: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1852-1856, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (2004) vii. 431-3, 454, 490, 507-8; The Times, 23 July 1855. In 1858 he succeeded as 11^th earl of Winchelsea and 6^th earl of Nottingham on his father’s death, following which he exhibited some slight activity as a peer. His lifelong love of the turf eventually caught up with him, first in 1865 when he was required to raise £50,000 against his Eastwell Park estate, and later in 1870 when he was declared bankrupt.28The Times, 2 Feb. 1870, 6 Oct. 1870. Winchelsea died of scarlet fever on 9 June 1887 at his London residence, 2 Cadogan Mansions, Sloane Square. He was buried at Eastwell parish church and succeeded by his half-brother, Murray Finch-Hatton (1851-1898).29Globe, 9 June 1887; Leeds Mercury, 14 June 1887. He died intestate, and no probate has been found. Maidstone’s correspondence with William Bentinck is held by Nottingham University Library.