ALEXANDER, Hon. James Du Pre (1812-1855), of Caledon, co. Tyrone of 5 Carlton House Terrace, London

Viscount Alexander’s short career in Parliament was confined almost exclusively to providing Sir Robert Peel with support in the division lobbies of the Commons. A serving army officer, he was absent in Canada when in April 1839 he was, as an Irish Member, obliged to give up his seat on succeeding to his father’s Irish peerage and estates.

Of Scottish origin, Alexander’s family had been successful Londonderry merchants who had made their fortune in the service of the East India Company. His grandfather, James Alexander (1730-1802), sat for Londonderry in the Irish Parliament, 1775-90, and acquired a large estate in county Tyrone, which in 1817 was valued at £200,000.1He is believed to have spent about £600,000 on the acquisition of land during the early 1770s: L. Lunney, ‘Alexander, James’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, i. 72. The family also acquired through marriage substantial estates near Old Sarum in Wiltshire, for which seat three kinsmen sat at Westminster,2Henry Alexander (1763-1818) sat from 1802-6, James Alexander (1769-1848) from 1812-32, and Josias Alexander (1771-1839), from 1820-8 and 1830-2: HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 56-8; HP Commons, 1820-32, iv. 52-6. and held title to several manors in Kent.3Burke’s Peerage (1864), 170; E. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800 (2002), iii. 75-7. Alexander’s father sat for the family borough of Newtown(ards) in 1800, and was the first governor of the Cape of Good Hope, 1807-11. He was lord lieutenant of county Tyrone from 1831, and served as chairman of the London-based Irish Distress Committee, 1831-5, which provided shipments of food for the distressed parts of counties Galway and Mayo. A ‘benevolent and improving’ landlord, he also made substantial improvements to Caledon village, including the construction of several flour mills.4Ibid., iii. 75-6; P.J. Jupp, ‘Alexander, Du Pre, second earl of Caledon’, Oxf. DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. A representative Irish peer from 1804, he voted against the reform bill in October 1831 and April 1832. Alexander’s maternal grandfather, the earl of Hardwicke, had been viceroy of Ireland, 1801-6.

Alexander was born in London and joined the Coldstream Guards in May 1833.5Belfast News-letter, 4 June 1833; G.E.C., Complete Peerage, ii. 486; Gent. Mag. (1855), ii. 193. After attending a meeting at Dungannon in support of the king’s dismissal of the Whig ministry, 19 Dec. 1834, at which he proposed a resolution expressing confidence in Sir Robert Peel’s new administration, he was brought forward for County Tyrone backed by his ‘very powerful’ family interest at the 1835 general election.6Belfast News-letter, 23 Dec. 1834; The Times, 15 Aug. 1837. Despite his avowal of support for Peel, he was regarded as ‘a consistent Whig’, and was forced into third place behind two rival Conservatives.7Morning Chronicle, 6 Jan. 1835; Belfast News-letter, 20, 27 Jan. 1835.

After serving as high sheriff of county Armagh in 1836, Alexander came forward again for County Tyrone on ‘moderate Conservative principles’ at the 1837 general election.8Belfast News-letter, 16 Feb. 1836; Morning Post, 3 July 1837. This time he was returned unopposed after his Tory rival, Lord Claud Hamilton, retired from the contest.9Standard, 24 July 1837. At Westminster he was classed as ‘a moderate Tory’, and in his address he had stated that his views were ‘strictly Conservative’.10The Assembled Commons; or, parliamentary biographer (1838), 14. He was proposed at the hustings by the Hon. A.G. Stuart, a former treasurer of the Grand Orange Lodge of Tyrone: Standard, 15 Aug. 1837. All the same, his supporters were required to contradict an assertion by the Morning Chronicle that he was among ‘the waverers’ upon whose support the Whig ministry might generally rely.11The Times, 15 Aug. 1837.

Alexander is not known to have spoken in debate and does not appear to have served on any select committees. On his intermittent visits to the division lobby he sided consistently with the Conservatives, voting against the second reading of the controverted elections bill, 27 Nov. 1837, and backing Peel’s resolution on the civil pensions list, 8 Dec. In the following session he voted for the Irish poor law bill to be considered in committee, 9 Feb. 1838, and divided against the ballot, 15 Feb., and later that month voted against the third reading of the parliamentary electors bill, and endorsed the reprimand of Daniel O’Connell for breach of privilege. After backing Lord Sandon’s motion blaming the government for the rebellion in Canada, 7 Mar., he left London on 28 March with the 2^nd battalion of the Coldstream Guards for service in North America.12Sir J.F.G. Ross, A History of the Coldstream Guards, From 1815 to 1895 (1896), 103, 108.

Alexander returned to the Commons a year later, and voted against a motion to consider the corn laws, 18 Mar. 1839. Early the following month, after voting in a total of just 23 divisions in his Commons career, he vacated his seat upon succeeding to his father’s Irish earldom.13Morning Post, 12 Apr. 1839. He inherited estates of more than 29,000 acres in county Tyrone, along with smaller estates in county Armagh and at Tittenhanger Park, near St. Albans in Hertfordshire, the dowry property of his mother.14Morning Post, 2 July 1855; J. Bateman, The Great Landowners of Great Britain (4th edn., 1883), 71; Complete Peerage, ii. 486. In May 1841, whilst still on service with his regiment in Canada, he was elected as an Irish representative peer.15Morning Post, 14 May 1841.

In 1845 Alexander married Charlotte Grimston (1825-88), a daughter of the earl of Verulam, and a niece of the former prime minister, Lord Liverpool, who served as a lady of the bedchamber, 1858-78.16Complete Peerage, ii. 486. Alexander was considered to be an improving landlord, the condition of his estates ‘in respect to places of worship, schools, houses, mills, roads, and other conveniences’ being presented as evidence of his ‘judicious care and expenditure’.17Gent. Mag. (1855), ii. 194. His art collection, which he housed in the family mansion in Carlton House Terrace, contained valuable paintings of the Italian, Spanish, French and Netherlandish schools.18G.F. Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain (1857), 147-52.

After several months of declining health Alexander died in London in June 1855 and was buried at the church at Caledon, county Tyrone.19Morning Post, 2 July 1855; Gent. Mag. (1855), ii. 194. He was succeeded by his eldest son, James Alexander (1846-98), a career army officer, whose third son, Harold Alexander, was commander-in-chief of the British forces in North Africa and Italy during the Second World War, and who was created Earl Alexander of Tunis in 1952.20Complete Peerage, ii. 486; F. Boase, Modern English Biography, iv. 580; D. Hunt, rev., ‘Alexander, Harold Rupert Leofric George, first Earl Alexander of Tunis’, Oxf. DNB, i. 671-5.