O’BRIEN (AFTERWARDS STAFFORD), Stafford Augustus (1811-1857), of Blatherwycke Park, Wansford, Northants. and Cratloe Woods, co. Clare.

An Irish landlord who was more ‘old Tory’ than ‘many of his seniors’, O’Brien sat for Northamptonshire North from 1841 until his unexpected death in 1857.1Illustrated London News, 14 Feb. 1846. He quickly rose to prominence in the emerging Protectionist party, paying particular attention to Irish legislation during the famine. He was appointed secretary to the admiralty in 1852, where he became embroiled in a dockyard recruitment scandal. Seeking public redemption, he travelled to the Crimea in 1854, meeting Florence Nightingale, and spent his final years campaigning for army reform.

O’Brien was educated at Harrow and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1832, following which he lived primarily at the family’s Blatherwycke Park estate near Kettering, which had been in the Stafford side of his paternal family since the sixteenth century. He was appointed deputy lieutenant for Northamptonshire in 1834, and had started to attend Conservative meetings for the northern division of the county by at least June 1835.2Leicester Journal, 19 June 1835. In 1837 it had been rumoured that he would come forward as a replacement for his ageing father-in-law, the moderate MP for Rutland, Gerard Noel Noel. However, following Noel’s decision to stand again, O’Brien came forward for County Limerick as a Conservative.3Stamford Mercury, 23 June 1837. The O’Brien side of his paternal family had owned the extensive Cratloe Woods estate in county Clare as well as some estates in county Limerick and county Tipperary since 1702, where they enjoyed a positive reputation as landlords.4An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the County of Northamptonshire (1984), vi. 18-22.

His candidacy in 1837 for County Limerick was castigated by the Liberal Freeman’s Journal as the ill-judged vanity project of a misguided young gentleman, eager to capitalise on the good will of his father’s tenants in the neighbouring county.5Freeman’s Journal, 31 July 1837. However, following initial canvassing, the Conservative Saunders’ Newsletter expressed little doubt as to the likelihood of O’Brien’s ‘triumphant success’.6Saunders’ Newsletter, 31 July 1837. On the hustings, he rejected his Liberal opponents’ insinuations that he was associated with the Orange Order, stating that he had ‘no animosity’ to his Catholic brethren. He also expressed support for Irish municipal reform, so long as a better measure could be identified by the next parliament, and endorsed ‘an equitable settlement of the tithe question’, but refused to support disestablishment.7Clare Journal, 10 Aug. 1837. After a violent contest, he was defeated with just 13 votes, having been forced to abandon the poll and flee the city in fear of his life.8Standard, 12 Aug. 1837; Drogheda Journal, 15 Aug. 1837. A petition against the result, complaining about widespread ‘terror and intimidation’ by mobs, was presented to the Commons, 4 Dec. 1837, but later abandoned, 3 Apr. 1838.9CJ (1837-8), xciii. 107-9, 423; Standard, 7 Dec. 1837; Dublin Evening Mail, 18 June 1838; R. Sloan, William Smith O’Brien and the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848 (2000), 57.

In 1838, O’Brien’s father-in-law’s ill health again led to unsubstantiated rumours that he would stand for Rutland.10Northampton Mercury, 10, 17 Feb. 1838. It appears that later that year he initiated his annual visit to Ireland, after assuming responsibility from his father for the management of the Cratloe Woods estate.11Dublin Mercantile Advertiser, 9 July 1838; Morning Chronicle, 15 Nov. 1838; Clare Journal, 21 Nov. 1839; Dublin Evening Mail, 21 Oct. 1840. O’Brien continued to play a role in Northamptonshire North’s Conservative politics from 1837, and came forward for the division in June 1841, when he was elected unopposed.12Lincolnshire Chronicle, 5 Oct. 1838. On the hustings he offered his support to Peel, attacked the incumbent government’s inability to reduce the national debt, warned that corn law repeal would lead electors to ‘continental starvation’ and criticised Whig inaction over church rates (but remained ambiguous himself).13Northampton Mercury, 10 July 1841.

During his first parliament, O’Brien attended 46% of recorded divisions, which was well above the 25% average. Aside from an errant vote in the minority in support of effectively abolishing the poor law commissioners, 27 June 1842, he was faithful to the Peelite whip until March 1844. His first recorded parliamentary intervention was over railway standards, 18 June 1842, and days later in The Times he called for national bye-laws to govern the railways.14The Times, 28 June 1842. O’Brien also took an interest in committee work. In July 1842 he asserted his right as a member of the house to attend any committee, after it had been resolved to gather evidence in secret on the 1841 Tipperary election. One of his tenants provided evidence to the committee later that week.15The Times, 30 June 1842, 1, 6 July 1842. He also served on the 1842 Irish fisheries committee, the 1844 committee on St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, and the 1846 committee on Westminster Bridge and the New Palace.16PP 1842 (403), xiv. 393; PP 1844 (474), vi. 807; PP 1846 (177), xv. 269.

O’Brien became a leading light in the emerging Protectionist party during 1844, when he opposed the government by adopting a Tory paternalist line over factory regulation and poor law reform, and divided against the Dissenters’ chapels bill and the Maynooth grant. He also started speaking regularly in the Commons in ‘a clear voice’ and with ‘a very distinct delivery’, which was bolstered by his ‘tall and commanding’ presence.17Illustrated London News, 14 Feb. 1846. As well as being a constant feature of corn law debates from 1844, in August that year he became the chair of the publications committee for the Agricultural Protection Society, whose ‘great object’, he assured Peel, was ‘to keep the farmers in good humour’.18BL Add. 40549, S. A. O’Brien to R. Peel, 1 Aug. 1844, ff. 174-6. He was also vocal over Ireland, warning when voting against Russell’s proposal for a committee to consider the state of Ireland that ‘happiness could not be forced upon a nation by acts of parliament, but only by industry, order and the co-operation of all classes for the common good’, 23 Feb. 1844. In 1844 he also introduced several failed bills for the prevention of holding of vestries in churches; for the placement of chaplains in every Irish asylum and infirmary; and for the regulation of agricultural markets in Ireland.19The Times, 29 Apr., 3 June, 13 Aug. 1844.

During 1845 he brought in an abortive bill to allow malt to be used duty-free for feeding cattle, 21 May 1845, and told the House that ‘the voice of the Protestantism of England was against the [Maynooth] grant’, 14 Apr. 1845, which he consistently divided against. He acquired public prominence for his principled stand against corn law repeal early in 1846, informing the Commons that ‘we [the Protectionists] may be small in number and uninfluential in debate, but we will raise our voices against the injustice which we may be unable to avert’, 10 Feb. 1846. The speech earned him an illustrated feature in the Illustrated London News, and the guarded praise that, in him ‘the agricultural interest had an advocate with every requisite, except the prospect of success’.20Illustrated London News, 14 Feb. 1846. Following this, he was prominent in attempts to organise a formal Protectionist party in parliament, and was supportive of Bentinck’s eventual leadership.21R. Stewart, Foundations of the Conservative Party, 1830-1867 (1978), 213-15. He divided against repeal of the corn laws throughout 1846 and was in the majorities that defeated the government over the lace factories bill, 20 May 1846, the factory bill, 22 May 1846, and Irish coercion, 25 June 1846 – which he had lobbied Peel to withdraw.22BL Add. 40593, ff. 28-32, S. A. O’Brien to R. Peel, 1 June 1846. During the 1847 session he paid particular attention to Irish poor relief, and in a debate on the Irish poor law amendment bill, which he feared would only exacerbate Irish distress, he asserted that he ‘preferred leaving the machinery of the existing poor law as it stood’, 8 Feb. 1847.

Ahead of the 1847 election, O’Brien secured royal licence to assume the surname of Stafford, in order to avoid being mistaken for his distant relative, who was his former opponent in the 1837 Limerick election and the leader of the Young Ireland movement, William Smith O’Brien (both had regularly been referred to as Mr. S. O’Brien in Hansard during the previous parliament).23Standard, 5 Aug. 1847. Stafford was returned unopposed for Northamptonshire North that year, after speaking in favour of protection for all sectors of the economy, ‘the Plough, the Loom, and the Sail’, and warning ‘working men’ that free trade would uniformly drive down wages. On the hustings, he also pledged to maintain the Ten Hours Act, prevent the separation of married couples in workhouses, and in response to Chartist calls for franchise reform, termed the Reform Act a disfranchising measure, stating in the future that ‘education must be the test of suffrage’.24Northampton Mercury, 7 Aug. 1847. Following his election he travelled to Ireland to support the successful candidatures of his distant relatives, Lucius O’Brien in County Clare, and William Smith O’Brien in County Limerick.25Limerick Reporter, 20 Aug. 1847. At the time, the Liberal Tipperary Journal noted with alarm this peculiar union between Irish repealers (one of whom had been Stafford’s former opponent) and an English protectionist.26Tipperary Journal, 18 Aug. 1847.

Prior to the 1847 election, Stafford had been earmarked as a secretary to the admiralty in a potential ‘country party government’, and in December he was mooted as a potential replacement for Bentinck as leader of the Protectionists. However, he signalled his withdrawal from the leadership through his unwillingness to compromise over Jewish emancipation, 17 Dec. 1847.27The Times, 3 June 1847; B. Disraeli to J. Manners, 26 Dec. 1847: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1842-1847, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (1989), iv. 328; Stewart, Foundations, 232; A. Hawkins, The Forgotten Prime Minister: The 14th Earl of Derby (2009), i. 339-40. Aside from the issue of Jewish emancipation, he remained loyal to the Protectionist whip throughout the parliament, and was one of 12 Protectionists who issued an address of thanks to Bentinck on his retirement as leader in February 1848.28The Times, 15 Feb. 1848. Stafford established himself as one of the party’s primary speakers during this parliament, taking a particular interest in Irish affairs (especially over the poor laws, distress and reform), electoral corruption and the reform of national railway conditions.29PP 1847-8 (220), x. 1; PP 1850 (286), xiii. 361. He also joined his fellow Northamptonshire MPs in opposing the government’s plans for reforming Smithfield market between 1849 and 1851. It was during protectionist meetings at Burghley House from 1849 that Stafford’s extracurricular talent for acting was revealed to Mary Boyle. Thereafter, the two became ‘colleague[s] and fellow-actor[s] in many a joyous revel and dramatic entertainment at Rockingham, Drayton and Farming Woods’, including amateur theatricals penned by Dickens. 30C. Dickens to M. Boyle, 5 Dec. 1850: The Pilgrim Edition of the Letters of Charles Dickens, 1850-1852 (1988), vi. 225; C. Boyle (ed.), Mary Boyle, her book (1902), 245.

Stafford’s major contribution in this parliament came over the Russell government’s 1849 Irish poor relief bill, which The Times dubbed ‘the measure of the session’.31The Times, 28 July 1849. The issue provided protectionists with a significant weapon against the Russell administration, and Stafford’s leadership over the matter impressed Disraeli, who felt that he had ‘shown himself a man of resource. His tone too has become more masculine and parliamentary’.32B. Disraeli to E. Smith-Stanley, 8 Feb. 1849, B. Disraeli to J. Manners, 18 Mar. 1849: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1848-1851, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (1993), v. 143-4, 157-8; Hawkins, Forgotten Prime Minister, i. 360. Stafford had been a major critic of the 1847 Irish Poor Law Extension Act (which had allowed for increased outdoor relief, and placed the full cost of the Irish poor law on property owners), and in The Times in late 1848 had warned against the government’s intentions to introduce a rate-in-aid to address ongoing funding issues with Ireland’s poor law. Stafford’s alternative solution was reflective of his Tory paternalism: he advocated smaller poor rate districts and a limited rate-in-aid that could only be resorted to when a landlord had expended a ‘certain high amount’ in his locality.33The Times, 6 Dec. 1848. He claimed that this would force bad landlords to take responsibility for their own poor, 2 Feb. 1849. Accordingly, Stafford voted in the minority with protectionists and Irish members to postpone the introduction of the Irish poor relief bill, 5 Mar. 1849, but after another failed attempt at delaying the bill the following night, absented himself from further debate, 6 Mar. 1849.34Hawkins, Forgotten Prime Minister, i. 360. He maintained his opposition to the bill, dividing against its second reading, 3 Apr. 1849, and steadily against its details.35The Times, 28 July 1849. He was particularly damning of the small print regarding proposals for the union rate-in-aid and the maximum rate, which he saw as an attempt to ‘levy a tax of 10 per cent upon the whole rateable property of Ireland’, 9 July 1849. It came as a victory for Stafford, then, when a Russell government, weakened by Stanley’s near success at preventing the repeal of the navigation laws during June, consented to the Lords’ amendments to the bill, which removed the union rate-in-aid and the statutory maximum rate, 27 July 1849, a move widely criticised in the press for ‘pro-landlord bias’.36P. Gray, Famine Land and Politics: British Government and Irish Society, 1843-50 (1999), 321-2. Stafford also saw emigration as a solution to Ireland’s problems, and was one of a number of Tory MPs (many of whom had Irish connections) who founded the Society for Canterbury Colonists (Canterbury Association) in 1848 to establish a Church of England colony in New Zealand.37PP 1847-8 (1002), xliii. 544.

Stafford had been earmarked for the board of trade in a potential Stanley (later Lord Derby) cabinet during 1849, and was rewarded for his loyalty in March 1852, when he was appointed secretary to the admiralty.38Hawkins, Forgotten Prime Minister, i. 361-2. Prior to the 1852 election, he steadily defended his department’s line as its representative in the Commons, which included overseeing a new search for John Franklin’s missing Arctic expedition, and announcing the sinking of HMS Birkenhead, 6 Apr. 1852.39PP 1852 (390, 501), l. 923, 939; PP 1852 (426), xxx. 219; Hampshire Telegraph, 10 Apr. 1852; Portsmouth Times, 29 May, 14 Aug. 1852; Morning Post, 14 and 25 June 1852; The Times, 25 Sept. 1852. Behind the scenes, however, his period in office was marred by a fractious relationship with the Peelite first lord of the admiralty, the duke of Northumberland, over the extent to which Stafford could use the admiralty for political purposes, as well as the disdain which most ‘professional’ permanent staff had for him. Significantly, prior to the 1852 election, and on the instruction of Derby and Disraeli, Stafford revoked an order instated by the previous lord of the admiralty, which had assigned responsibility for dockyard promotions to the surveyor of the navy, Captain Baldwin Walker. The order had been rationalised by the previous Whig administration on the basis that it removed patronage from dockyard appointments. In reality, Stafford, Derby and Disraeli discovered that Walker’s Whig sympathies had influenced his appointments, which threatened to prevent the minority government from securing vital dockyard seats in an upcoming election. After overturning the order, Stafford successfully used admiralty resources to secure the election of Conservative candidates at Chatham, Plymouth and Devonport, which Northumberland complained to Derby had replaced ‘reward for merit’ with ‘reward for votes’.40A. Lambert, ‘The Ultimate Test: The Fourteenth Earl, the Admiralty and the Ministry, 1852’, in G. Hicks (ed.), Conservatism and British Foreign Policy, 1820-1920 (2011), 41-58.

As an election had already been called prior to his appointment to the admiralty, Stafford did not have to immediately stand for re-election, and was returned at the general election in a nominal contest. He refused to provide any pledges, but spoke in favour of the Derby’s government’s amended militia bill (which proposed 21 days of service by ballot) and consented on the hustings to consider the gradual widening of the suffrage. Stafford’s distrust of Northumberland increased during the recess after he visited the former Whig first naval lord, James Dundas, in the Mediterranean, who warned him that Northumberland was trying to provoke his resignation.41Hawkins, Forgotten Prime Minister, i. 363-5. On his return Stafford halted a committee on maritime steam engines that had been planned by Northumberland, which as Andrew Lambert has demonstrated divided the board of the admiralty along political/professional lines, and required the intervention of Derby to prevent resignations ahead of the opening of parliament. Stafford’s attempt to reduce Northumberland’s demands for increased navy estimates ahead of the budget only further increased tensions, and Northumberland’s last minute calls for additional funds contributed to the rejection of Disraeli’s budget and the resignation of the Derby administration, 16 Dec. 1852, and with it the loss of Stafford’s post.42Lambert, ‘Ultimate Test’, 50-5; B. Disraeli to Lord Derby, 6 Oct. 1852, 30 Nov. 1852, B. Disraeli to Queen Victoria, 6 Dec. 1852: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1852-1856, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (1997), vi. 163-5, 191, 195-6.

For Stafford, the 1853 session was consumed with the fallout from his attempts to secure the return of Conservative candidates in dockyard constituencies in 1852. A parliamentary committee declared the election of Conservatives at Chatham and Plymouth void in early 1853, following which the Aberdeen ministry took the opportunity to institute a select committee, which included a merciless Benjamin Hall, to investigate Stafford’s conduct at the admiralty.43PP 1852-3 (511), xxv. 1. That April a disgraced Stafford conceded blame for the affair, and admitted lying to parliament during November 1852 over his role in dockyard recruitment. This forced him out of the running for chief whip, but also saved the blushes of Disraeli and Derby, who escaped any blame for their part in the scandal.44Stewart, Foundations, 279. Stafford travelled to Paris in May, and although he attempted to defend his actions against the ‘judicial farce’ of the inquiry in Conservative weekly, The Press, his reputation had suffered considerable damage.45B. Disraeli to S. Lucas, 15 May 1853: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1852-1856, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (1997), vi. 240-1; A. P. Saab, ‘Foreign Affairs and New Tories: Disraeli, The Press, and the Crimean War’, International History Review, 19, 2 (1997), 286-311. This coincided with a considerable reduction in his parliamentary activity during 1853 and 1854, when his attendance of the division lobbies briefly dipped to average levels and he spoke on only a handful of occasions.

When news broke of the poor conditions in the Crimea in October 1854, Stafford took the opportunity ‘to prove his regret’ for the dockyard scandal, by risking ‘his life among those brave men who were suffering contagion and the calamities of war’.46Northampton Mercury, 4 Apr. 1857. He arrived at troop hospitals in Constantinople by 8 Nov. before travelling to the Crimea on 26 Nov. 1854.47PP 1854-5 (156), ix. 363. After some initial difficulties accessing troops in Balaklava, he was able to fulfil his role as a commissioner for the The Times’ Patriotic Fund.48PP 1854-5 (218), ix. 485; F. Nightingale to S. Herbert, 10 Dec. 1854: L. Mcdonald (ed.), Florence Nightingale: The Crimean War (2010), xiv. 82; The Times, 18 Dec. 1854. As well as administering supplies in Balaklava and Scutari, Stafford recorded evidence of the conditions for troops and tended to the sick. While Florence Nightingale felt Stafford’s actions had demonstrated ‘kindness and zeal’, Colonel John Jocelyn Bourke, who was in the Crimea, was more sceptical and informed his brother, Richard Bourke MP, that Stafford had only visited ‘for the sole purpose of bringing himself into notice’.49P. Huddie, ‘Augustus Stafford O’Brien Stafford MP: Contested hero of the Crimean War’, Old Limerick Journal, xliv (2012), 55-6.

Stafford had returned to England by early 1855 and was present to provide evidence to the Commons during the debate on Roebuck’s motion for a select committee into the condition of the army and the conduct of government operations in the Crimea, which brought down the Aberdeen ministry, 29 Jan. 1855. He resolved to ‘repose the old [army] system’ and spoke at every opportunity in the Commons over conditions in the Crimea before providing extensive evidence of his experiences to the select committee on the army before Sebastapool on 19 Mar. 1855.50PP 1854-5 (156), ix. 363-86. He returned to the Crimea that September to review the impact of reforms.51The Times, 15 Dec. 1855; BL. Add. 49546, A. Stafford to M. Stopford, 13 Sep. 1855, f. 55. Following his return he informed an audience at Stamford in March 1856, that within a year of his first visit to Scutari, ‘confusion had given place to order, filth to cleanliness [and] the mitigation of all the evils of war’ before praising the ‘ceaseless work’ of Florence Nightingale.52The Times, 21 Mar. 1856. From 1856 army reform proved the primary focus of Stafford’s parliamentary activity. He continued to speak regularly on the topic in the Commons and chaired the select committee on the army medical department, which sat between May and June 1856. Aside from rebelling repeatedly against Disraeli early in the parliament over Jewish disabilities, Stafford remained faithful to the Conservative whip. He voted in the minorities that supported Spooner’s anti-Maynooth motion, 19 Feb., and Disraeli’s motion to abolish income tax, 23 Feb., before voting in the majority in favour of Cobden’s censure motion on Canton, 3 Mar. 1857.

Stafford was elected unopposed at the 1857 election, although he did suffer prolonged heckling on the hustings over his role in the 1852 dockyard recruitment scandal.53Northampton Mercury, 4 Apr. 1857. On his return to parliament he maintained his adherence to the Conservative whip as well as his focus on army reform, and was an active member of the royal commission on the sanitary conditions of the army between May and July 1857.54PP 1856 (331), xiii. 359.

Following the prorogation of parliament and a visit to Ashridge House, where his dramatic talents provided Disraeli with a rare moment of enjoyment in an otherwise bleak evening of charades, Stafford embarked on his annual visit to Ireland.55B. Disraeli to Lady Londonderry, 8 Oct. 1857: Benjamin Disraeli letters, 1852-1856, ed. M. G. Wiebe et al. (2004) vii. 80. He became severely ill on 4 November while in Cratloe, with what was likely a recurrence of renal colic. Following several days of repeated high doses of laudanum, and being bled, Stafford’s condition had improved only slightly, prompting him to seek ‘superior medical advice’ in Dublin. He died at Morrison’s Hotel a day after arriving in the city.56The Tablet, 21 Nov. 1857. An inquest acquitted Stafford’s doctor in Cratloe of any malpractice, although Charles Dickens, who had a pending appointment with Stafford to visit wounded troops at Chatham, offered his verdict – ‘Murdered by Doctor’.57The Times, 20 Nov. 1857; Charles Dickens to Emile de la Rue, 23 Oct. 1857: The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens, ed. J. Hartley (2012), 331. The Times lamented the ‘sudden and melancholy’ death of a ‘speaker of some force and humour’ in parliament, and a ‘volunteer in the cause of humanity’ for his efforts at army reform since 1854.58The Times, 21 Nov. 1857. His will was sworn at under £4,000 and his personal estate and effects were granted to his father.59England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, 4 Feb. 1858. Within four months of his death a memorial fund had collected almost £1,000, which was used to refurbish St Mary’s Church of Ireland Cathedral and install a large three-panelled stained glass window in Stafford’s honour. The whereabouts of Stafford’s personal papers are currently unknown after being sold to a private bidder at auction, but his correspondence with several key figures of the period, including Derby and Disraeli, are held in their respective archives.60Lambert, ‘Ultimate Test’, 45. See Stafford’s entry in the National Archives catalogue, http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F31774 [accessed 15 June 2016].