CHICHESTER, Lord Arthur (1808-1840), of Ormeau, co. Down and 23 Arlington Street, London

A junior member of the family that had once dominated the politics of County Antrim, Chichester’s foray into parliamentary politics proved short-lived. He was inclined to rest his pretensions ‘more on the claims of his family than on his individual merits’, and his drift away from the Whig-reformers towards the Conservatives became unpopular with the electors of Belfast, where his profligate father’s political influence had begun to decline. In spite of his family’s ‘peculiarly weighty claims’ on the constituency, he was defeated in 1835 and did not seek another seat before his untimely death whilst on military service in 1840.1Belfast News-letter, 16 Jan. 1835.

Chichester was born at Ormeau House, a younger son of the 2^nd marquess of Donegall, a notorious rake who, as the earl of Belfast, had represented Carrickfergus in the Irish Parliament, 1798-9.2I.W. Ward, ‘Donegall House, and Ormeau House, the Residences of the Donegall Family’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, second series, xi (1905), 126-30, at 129; E. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800 (2002), iii. 410. His mother was the illegitimate daughter of ‘a high-class moneylender’, who was the means by which his father had obtained his release from debtors’ prison, although the dubious legitimacy of their marriage threatened to bastardise their children. A licentious spendthrift, Donegall endured a life-long battle with his creditors, but nevertheless retained substantial political influence at Carrickfergus and Belfast, where he ‘owned much of the soil’.3HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 648; G.E.C., Complete Peerage, iv. 392.

Like five of his seven brothers Chichester entered military service. At the age of 16 he assumed the commission of his recently deceased brother, Lord Spencer Chichester (1805-25), in the Royal Fusilier Regiment, and purchased the rank of captain in December 1827.4Burke’s Peerage (1864), 344; Morning Post, 20 June 1825; Morning Post, 19 Dec. 1827. His father, however, had political ambitions for his sons. Once reckoned the richest landowner in Ireland, Donegall retained enough political influence to have Chichester’s oldest brother, George Hamilton Chichester, earl of Belfast, returned first for Carrickfergus in 1818 and for his ‘pocket borough’ of Belfast in 1820.5HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 649. At the 1830 general election, however, nothing came of Chichester’s rumoured candidacy in the Protestant interest at County Donegal, where his father was shortly to be made lord lieutenant, because neither of the sitting members proved willing to stand aside.6HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 723.

Although Donegall had been an opponent of Catholic emancipation, he supported the Whig-Liberal party during the reform period.7Complete Peerage, iv. 392. With these principles in mind, Chichester offered for County Donegal at the 1831 general election, where he benefited from the pro-Catholic and reform sympathies of his brother Lord Belfast, who had been returned for County Antrim in 1830. Chichester, however, was reckoned to have ‘an unsatisfactory manner’, and, suspected of being ‘lukewarm’ towards the reform bill, was ‘signally defeated’.8Freeman’s Journal, 14, 21 May 1831; HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 723; Belfast News-letter, 18 Sept. 1832.

Having eschewed another contest at Donegal, and despite lacking political experience, in August 1832 Chichester announced that he would stand for Belfast at the general election.9Belfast News-letter, 24, 28 Aug. 1832. Standing as the candidate of the corporation party, his pretensions were ridiculed by the Northern Whig.10Northern Whig, 23, 27 Aug., 3, 6 Sept. 1832. However, he ‘deliberately positioned himself as a moderate Whig’ in order to benefit from a reaction against the more radical Reformers’ attempt to monopolise the representation, and proved more acceptable to the borough’s newly established Reform Society than the sitting member, his kinsman, Sir Arthur Chichester.11J.J. Wright, The ‘Natural Leaders’ and Their World. Politics, Culture and Society in Belfast, c. 1801-1832 (2012), 132, 134; Belfast News-letter, 18 Sept. 1832; W.A. Maguire, Living like a Lord: The Second Marquis of Donegall, 1769-1844 (2002), 91. Pointing to an identity of interest between the town and his family, Chichester emphasised the role his kinsmen had played in securing a second seat for the borough under the Irish Reform Act. He was opposed to all pensions and sinecures not won by ‘meritorious labour’, and ‘a friend to free trade’, albeit not to a system in which the advantage was ‘on the side of foreign nations’. He remained unpledged, however, conceiving the practice to be unconstitutional.12Belfast News-letter, 16 Nov., 18 Dec. 1832. His hustings speech was delivered ‘in a most animated style’, but was barely audible over the tumult. In it, he conceded that changes to the church establishment were necessary, and called for the ‘immediate extinction’ of colonial slavery. There were, however, indications that he might follow ‘the family line back towards Conservatives’ by adopting a Whiggish stance on the ballot, which he described as subversive of the elective franchise, and universal suffrage, which he denounced on the ground that ‘if the intelligence of society were systematically out-voted by mere numbers, the reign of anarchy must soon commence’.13Belfast News-letter, 18 Dec. 1832. With the assistance of his mother, who condescended to visit the town’s tradesmen, he was returned at the top of the poll.14Maguire, Living like a Lord, 92.

Chichester’s attendance at Westminster was punctuated by illnesses, and he contributed little to the business of the House other than his occasional presence in the division lobby. However, he attended the reformed Parliament at the earliest opportunity, leaving Ormeau for London in late January 1833.15Belfast News-letter, 1 Feb. 1833. His name was put to the election petition which challenged the return at Carrickfergus, 19 Feb., the venal family borough that Sir Arthur Chichester had been persuaded to contest, but without success.16HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 724; iv, 646. He voted for the first and second readings of the Irish coercion bill, 1, 11 Mar., presenting a petition from Belfast in its favour, 14 Mar.17CJ, lxxxviii. 74-6; PP 1833 (181) viii. 1; Hansard, 14 Mar. 1833, vol. 16, c. 640. He divided against Thomas Attwood’s motion for an inquiry into general distress, 21 Mar., but then suffered ‘very severely’ from influenza and was prevented from attending to his parliamentary duties for a period. He returned to Westminster in April to present petitions for the establishment of poor laws in Ireland and the immediate abolition of slavery, 19 Apr., along with a plea from the Third Presbyterian Congregation of Belfast respecting the ‘profanation of the Sabbath’, 22 Apr. 1833.18Morning Chronicle, 20 Apr. 1833; Belfast News-letter, 3 May 1833. He divided against Matthias Attwood’s motion for currency reform, 24 Apr., and in May spoke in defence of the Irish yeomanry, arguing that its members in the North of Ireland were ‘respectable, peaceable, and well conducted’.19Belfast News-letter, 17 May 1833. He was balloted to serve on the Montgomery and Stafford election committees, 22 May, 11 June, but is not known to have sat on any other select committees.20CJ, lxxxviii. 422; Morning Post, 12 June 1833. In July he voted against allowing £20 million to compensate West Indian proprietors, and divided against Tennyson’s motion for shorter parliaments, 23 July 1833.

Chichester’s principal appeal to the electors on his return in 1832 had been his ‘special and zealous devotedness to the local interests’ of Belfast.21Belfast News-letter, 16 Nov. 1832; The Times, 27 Dec. 1834. However, although he was praised during the recess by his colleague, James Emerson Tennant, for having been ‘promptly and anxiously at his post’ whenever matters affecting his constituency were discussed, Chichester’s second session in the Commons was unimpressive. He was absent from important divisions on the pension list, 18 Feb. 1834, impressment, 4 Mar., the corn laws, 7 Mar., and church rates, 21 Apr., and only arrived in London in early April.22Belfast News-letter, 14 Jan. 1834; Morning Post, 7 Apr. 1834. He had, however, been returned on an explicit rejection of the repeal of the Union, which he had described as ‘pregnant with danger’, and voted against O’Connell’s motion, 29 Apr. 1834. Again prevented by illness from attending regularly at Westminster, this appears to have been his only vote in a major division in that year.23Belfast News-letter, 18 Dec. 1832, 16 Jan. 1835; R. Gooch, The Book of the Reformed Parliament (1834), 50-1.

By now regarded as ‘a doubtful Reformer’, Chichester came forward again for Belfast at the 1835 general election.24Belfast News-letter, 25 Dec. 1834. While claiming to be ‘as free and independent as before’, he was presented as ‘the firm friend’ of Sir Robert Peel’s administration and, with regard to religious questions, promised to ‘go the full length’ of the premier’s address at Tamworth. He also advocated tithe reform, provided it did ‘justice to vested rights’, but as to repeal, he called upon ‘the people of the North’ to unite with their representatives in putting down ‘the factious agitations of that rebellious measure’.25Belfast News-letter, 13, 16 Jan. 1835. He was, however, defeated by a local Presbyterian linen manufacturer standing on the Reform interest, in spite of his mother braving the ‘tempestuous weather’ to canvass on his behalf with ‘a persevering zeal’.26Belfast News-letter, 16, 20 Jan. 1835. Chichester’s confident belief that he would be seated on appeal was misplaced, however, and the petition against the return was discharged, 18 June 1835, owing largely to the earl of Belfast’s failure to contribute to the ‘very heavy expense’ involved.27Belfast News-letter, 20 Jan., 24 Mar. 1835; CJ, cx. 114-5, 352; Morning Post, 23 May 1835, quoting Belfast Guardian; PP 1837 (308) xi, pt. I.1. Although he was invited to stand again that August following the untimely death of his former opponent, he surprised observers by declining in favour of a lesser-known candidate.28Belfast News-letter, 18 Aug. 1835; The Times, 21 Aug. 1835.

Chichester’s defeat marked the decline of the Donegall interest in Belfast, and although his brother Lord John Ludford Chichester sat for the borough from 1845-52, the enforced sale of the family’s Belfast property in 1850 saw its influence come to an end.29HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 665; iv. 650. Returning to army service, Chichester was ordered to embark with a detachment of his regiment for Mauritius in July 1836, and he died there in June 1840.30Morning Post, 11 July 1836, 2 Nov. 1840; Gent. Mag. (1840), ii. 676. Unmarried and childless, the lands that had been vested in him were settled upon his brother, Lord Edward Chichester, who succeeded as 4^th marquess of Donegal in 1883.31The Times, 3 Mar. 1841; Twelfth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (1888), Appx., pt. II, 180.