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(This Wikipedia article last reviewed on 30 Jul 2024.)

Matthew White Ridley, 1st Viscount Ridley, PC, DL (25 July 1842 – 28 November 1904), known as Sir Matthew White Ridley, 5th Baronet, from 1877 to 1900, was a British Conservative statesman. He notably served as Home Secretary from 1895 to 1900.[1]

Background and education

Ridley was born in London, the eldest son of Sir Matthew White Ridley, 4th Baronet, and his wife the Hon. Cecilia Anne, daughter of James Parke, 1st Baron Wensleydale, and his wife Cecilia Arabella Frances Barlow. He was educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1865, he was a Fellow of All Souls for nine years.[2]

Political career

In 1868, he was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Northumberland North, and held this seat until the 1885 general election, when he was defeated in his attempt to stand for the new seat of Hexham. At the 1886 general election he contested Newcastle-upon-Tyne, again unsuccessfully, but returned to Parliament in an 1886 by-election at Blackpool. Having been Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department for two years in Disraeli's administration, Sir Matthew Ridley (as he became when he succeeded his father as fifth baronet in 1877) was Financial Secretary to the Treasury in Lord Salisbury's interim government of 1885 to 1886. In 1895, after the fall of Lord Rosebery's ministry, and having already failed in April of that year to be elected Speaker of the House of Commons, Ridley became Home Secretary, and held this post until his retirement in 1900. He was that same year created Viscount Ridley and Baron Wensleydale, of Blagdon and Blyth in the County of Northumberland.[3]

Family

Lord Ridley married Mary Georgiana Marjoribanks (1850 – 14 March 1909), daughter of The 1st Baron Tweedmouth and his wife, Isabella Weir-Hogg, on 10 December 1873.[1] They were parents to five children:

Lord Ridley died aged 62 at his Blagdon Hall home in Northumberland, and was buried there.[2]

References

    1. ^ Jump up to:a b Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles (1895). Armorial Families: A Complete Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage. Jack. p. 1033. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
    2. ^ Jump up to:a b "Ridley, Viscount (UK, 1900)". cracroftspeerage.co.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
    3. ^ "No. 27257". The London Gazette. 18 December 1900. p. 8538.

 

 

 

(This Wikipedia article last reviewed on 30 Jul 2024.)

Sir William Grantham (1835–1911) was a British barrister, Member of Parliament for 12 years for successive areas which took in Croydon then, from 1886, High Court judge.

Biography

[edit]

Grantham was born on 23 October 1835 in Lewes, Sussex, England to George Grantham and Sarah Grantham (née Verrall).[1] He was educated at King's College School, and was called to the bar in 1863 at Inner Temple.[1] He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1877.[2]

Grantham married Emma L Wilson on 15 February 1865 in Sussex, England.[1] The couple had seven children. His eldest son's wife was granddaughter of British astronomer and chemist Warren de la Rue.[citation needed]

Legacy

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He was a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Surrey Eastern from 1874 to 1885 and was elected as for Croydon in 1885. He was knighted that year.[3] In parliament he spoke 184 times, the last of which in 1885,[4] and ardently opposed Gladstone.[1] He resigned in 1886 on appointment as a judge of the Queen's Bench Division. He came to chair the East Sussex Quarter Sessions.[3]

As a judge he was seen as competent but with a weakness for commenting on cases in a way that brought him into conflict with various groups, a habit that eventually led to hints in the newspapers that he should retire.[1] His tenure as a judge was mainly uncontroversial until 1906, when, co-determining petitions following the general election: for Bodmin, Maidstone and Great Yarmouth, he was seen as favouring the Conservatives.[1] A censure motion was proposed in the House of Commons and led to a vigorous debate, but the government declined to take it further, possibly because of the precedent it would set.[1]

Five years later, an indiscreet speech to the grand jury in Liverpool led to him being rebuked by the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, in the Commons,[5] 'one of the severest ever dealt to an English judge by a minister of the crown'.[1] He died later that year, of pneumonia, in his house, 100 Eaton Square,[6] London, aged 76,[1] also possessed of Barcombe Place, near Lewes, East Sussex.[6]

His probate was resworn the next year at £233,406 (equivalent to about £29,200,000 in 2023).[6]

References

[edit]

    1. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i Atlay, J. B.; Stevens, Robert. "Grantham, Sir William (1835–1911)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33519. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
    2. ^ "Obituary: Sir William Grantham", Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 132, 1 December 1911, p. 6.
    3. ^ Jump up to:a b "Grantham, Sir William, (23 Oct. 1835–30 Nov. 1911), DCL; Judge of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice from 1886." Who's Who & Who Was Who. 1 December 2007. Oxford University Press. Date of access 4 December 2019. (subscription required)
    4. ^ Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by William Grantham
    5. ^ Hansard, HC 5ser vol 22 col 366.
    6. ^ Jump up to:a b c Calendar of Probates and Administrations

 

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Submitted by Richard Hungerford at 12:22 AM on July 31, 2024.

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