John Pakington, 1st Baron Hampton

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PC FRS
The 1st Baron Hampton, c. 1867
Secretary of State for War and the Colonies
In office
17 February 1852 – 17 December 1852
MonarchQueen Victoria
Prime MinisterThe Earl of Derby
Preceded byThe Earl Grey
Succeeded byThe Duke of Newcastle
Secretary of State for War
In office
8 March 1867 – 1 December 1868
MonarchQueen Victoria
Prime MinisterThe Earl of Derby
Benjamin Disraeli
Preceded byJonathan Peel
Succeeded byEdward Cardwell
Personal details
Born(1799-02-20)20 February 1799
Died(1880-04-09)9 April 1880 (aged 81)
Eaton Square, London
NationalityBritish
Political partyConservative
Spouse(s)(1) Mary Slaney (d. 1843)
(2) Augusta Murray (d. 1848)
(3) Augusta de Crespigny
Alma materOriel College, Oxford

John Somerset Pakington, 1st Baron Hampton,

PC, FRS (20 February 1799 – 9 April 1880), known as Sir John Pakington, Bt, from 1846 to 1874, was a British Conservative
politician.

Background and education

He was born John Somerset Russell, the son of William Russell and Elizabeth Pakington, of the Pakington family of a Worcestershire family, sister and heiress of Sir John Pakington, the 8th and last Baronet Pakington of Ailesbury.[1] His birthplace was Slaughter's Court, Powick, Worcestershire.[2]

His father William Russell (1750–1812) was a barrister and magistrate, the son of a surgeon of Worcester of the same name, and first cousin of William Oldnall Russell, and had first been married to Mary Cocks, with whom he had a daughter Mary.[3] He was left an orphan when his mother died in 1813:[2] his half-sister Mary had married in 1806 the Rev. Henry Barry Domvile, and Domvile from 1811 had the living near Powick of Leigh with Bransford.[3][4] John was educated at Eton College and matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford in 1818.[2][5]

The second son, John became the heir when his elder brother William Herbert Russell died in 1819, and he left Oxford without a degree.[2] In 1827 he fought a duel, over a matter concerning the Worcestershire Hunt. It took place at Kempsey, when he and John Parker, Master of the Hunt, fired at each other without injury.[6]

John Somerset Russell assumed in 1831 by Royal Licence the surname of Pakington in lieu of his patronymic, having inherited in 1830 the estates of his maternal uncle Sir John Pakington, which he held jointly with the baronet's younger sister Ann Pakington.

Westwood House, Worcestershire
and Pakington moved there with his first wife Mary, in 1832.

Political career

Pakington had a family connection to

Henry Beauchamp Lygon standing for Worcestershire.[9] He was elected at the fourth attempt as the Tory Member of Parliament for Droitwich in 1837, a seat he held until 1874.[1]

Pakington is considered a

liberal conservative.[10] He was first given office by Sir Robert Peel in 1841 and created in 1846 Baronet Pakington of the second creation, of Westwood in the County of Worcester.[1]

1850s and 1860s

Pakington served under Lord Derby one-year administration, as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in 1852.[1] He announced the end of penal transportation to Van Diemen's Land, shortly to be known as Tasmania.[11] He gave the green light to responsible government in New South Wales, which came about in 1855.[12] Pressed by Charles Adderley, he granted New Zealand a constitution qualified by London's control of policy on indigenous peoples.[13]

In opposition Pakington developed an interest in education reform. He was sworn of the

Anglican schools that supposed nonconformist financial support.[17]

With the Tories back in power, Pakington again held office under Lord Derby, as

First Lord of the Admiralty from 1858 to 1859 and from 1866 to 1867. As First Lord he commissioned the first ironclad warship, HMS Warrior, launched in 1860. Following design work by John Scott Russell working with Baldwin Wake Walker, the time was ripe, given the French appointment of the naval architect Henri Dupuy de Lôme.[18]

Under Derby and his successor Benjamin Disraeli Pakington was Secretary of State for War from 1867 to 1868.[1] He was appointed a GCB in 1859.[14] He chaired the Pakington Inquiry on education in 1865.[15]

A butt of Derby's robust sense of humour, Pakington at a dinner in 1858 found himself being toasted by Derby who proposed "Sir John Pakington and the Wooden Spoons of Old England", the parliamentary wooden spoon being given to the Member who voted the fewest times in a session. Another anecdote had him late for a Cabinet meeting and excusing himself as having been "at Spithead", where naval reviews were held. Derby replied with a sarcastic pun on swell, meaning dandy as well as a form of wave.[19]

1870s

Pakington caricatured by "ATn" in Vanity Fair, 1870

In 1871 Pakington addressed the

Gathorne Hardy and some of the House of Lords a memorandum on social reform measures to be taken, the "seven points".[24][25] In October, in an article "The New Social Movement", the Saturday Review
commented:

The pompous announcement of an alliance between the aristocracy and the artisans bears traces of Mr. Disraeli's earlier manner; but a serious belief in the practicability in the present day of a limited and regulated socialism is only worthy of Sir John Pakington or of

Lord John Manners. When Coningsby and Sybil were published, there had been no insurrection of a Paris Commune, nor had Mr. Mill and the Land and Labour League attacked directly or indirectly the right of property in land.[26]

Pakington, by now unpopular with Tory leaders, lost his seat in the Commons in the 1874 general election, defeated on a large swing from 1868 by John Corbett, a local Liberal.[2][27] He was raised to the peerage as Baron Hampton, of Hampton Lovett and of Westwood in the County of Worcester.

Other public appointments

Hampton served for many years as chairman of the Worcestershire Quarter Sessions. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1858.[28] He was also President of the Royal Statistical Society from 1861 to 1863 and Chief Civil Service Commissioner from 1875 until his death. He was also the president of the Institution of Naval Architects from its inception in 1860 until months before his death.[29]

Death

Lord Hampton died at his London home in April 1880, aged 81, and was succeeded by his son from his first marriage, John Slaney Pakington.[30]

Family

He was three times married:[30]

  • Firstly, in 1822 as John Somerset Russell, to Mary Slaney, daughter of Moreton Aglionby Slaney; she died in 1843.
  • Secondly, in 1844, to Augusta, daughter of the Right Reverend
    George Murray
    ; she died in 1848.
  • Thirdly, in 1851, to Augusta Anne, daughter of
    Thomas Champion Crespigny MP, and widow of Thomas Henry Hastings Davies
    MP.

His son John Slaney Pakington (born 1826) by the first marriage became the 2nd Baron Hampton; he had a son Herbert Perrott Murray Pakington (born 1846) by the second marriage, who became the 3rd Baron Hampton, and was father of Herbert Stuart Pakington who on his death in 1906 became the 4th Baron. There were no children of the third marriage.[31][32]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pakington" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 521.
  2. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21149. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  3. ^ a b Grazebrook, Henry Sydney (1873). The Heraldry of Worcestershire. Vol. II. J.R. Smith. p. 480.
  4. ^ "Domville, Henry Barry (1804–1833) (CCEd Person ID 10648)". The Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540–1835. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  5. Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886. Oxford: Parker and Co – via Wikisource
    .
  6. ^ Tuberville, T. C. (1852). Worcestershire in the nineteenth century. A complete digest of facts occurring in the county since the commencement of the year 1800. London : Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. p. 265.
  7. ^ Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry. Vol. II. London: H. Colburn. 1847. p. 991.
  8. ^ Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage. Burke's Peerage Limited. 1878. p. 371.
  9. ^ The Illustrated London News. Vol. 20. Leighton. 1852. p. 321.
  10. ISBN 978-0-271-04283-1
    .
  11. ^ Pike, Douglas (1966). Australia: The Quiet Continent. CUP Archive. p. 91.
  12. ISBN 978-1-86287-550-0
    .
  13. ^ Childe-Pemberton, William Shakespear (1909). Life of Lord Norton (Right Hon. Sir Charles Adderley, K. C. M. G., M. P.) 1814–1905, statesman & philanthropist. London : J. Murray. p. 112.
  14. ^ a b Dod, Charles Roger Phipps (1863). The Peerage, Baronetage, And Knightage, Of Great Britain And Ireland For ... Including All the Titled Classes. Whittaker And Company. p. 453.
  15. ^ a b Moss, Gemma. "IOE LibGuides: Literacy Attainment: Historical Resources: Education Policy". libguides.ioe.ac.uk.
  16. ^ Cates, William Leist Readwin (1885). A Dictionary of General Biography. Longmans, Green. pp. 1516–1517.
  17. ISBN 978-1-4464-7382-5
    .
  18. ISBN 978-0-7195-3393-8
    .
  19. ^ Malmesbury, James Howard Harris Earl of (1884). Memoirs of an Ex-minister: An Autobiography. Vol. II. Longmans, Green. p. 127.
  20. ISBN 978-0-582-50713-5
    .
  21. ISBN 978-1-78308-529-3
    .
  22. ISBN 978-1-4742-3785-7
    .
  23. JSTOR 60226256
    .
  24. ISBN 978-1-317-06838-9
    .
  25. ^ Burke, Edmund (1872). The Annual Register of World Events: A Review of the Year. Longmans, Green. p. 119.
  26. ^ The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art. Vol. XXXII. J. W. Parker and Son. 1871. p. 512.
  27. ^ Public Opinion. Vol. 25. G. Cole. 1874. p. 190.
  28. ^ "Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660-2007". London: The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 24 March 2010. Retrieved 4 August 2010.
  29. ^ K.C. Barnaby, The Institution of Naval Architects, 1860 - 1960: An Historical Survey, London, 1960.
  30. ^ a b Barker, George Fisher Russell (1895). "Pakington, John Somerset" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 43. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 94.
  31. ISBN 978-3-7340-1212-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  32. ^ Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles (1910). Armorial Families: A Directory of Gentlemen of Coat-armour. London and Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack. p. 1239.

Bibliography

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Parliament of the United Kingdom
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