Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/North, Frederick (1732-1792)
NORTH, FREDERICK, second Earl of Guilford, better known as Lord North (1732–1792), only son of Francis, first earl of Guilford [q. v.], by his first wife, Lady Lucy Montagu, daughter of George, second earl of Halifax, was born in Albemarle Street, Piccadilly, on 13 April 1732. The Prince of Wales was his godfather, and North as a child was frequently at Leicester House, where, on 4 Jan. 1749, he took the part of Syphax in Addison's ‘Cato’ (Lady Hervey, Letters, 1821, pp. 147–8, n.) He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 12 Oct. 1749, and was created M.A. on 21 March 1750. After leaving the university he travelled for three years on the continent, in company with William, second earl of Dartmouth (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. v. 330), and devoted some time under Mascove at Leipzig to the study of the German constitution (Correspondence of Geo. III with Lord North, vol. i. p. lxxxii). At the general election in April 1754 he was returned to the House of Commons for the family borough of Banbury, which he continued to represent until his succession to the peerage. Though his political views inclined to toryism, North acted at first as a follower of his kinsman the Duke of Newcastle, at whose recommendation he was appointed a junior lord of the treasury on 2 June 1759 (Chatham Correspondence, i. 409). He took a leading part in the proceedings against Wilkes in the House of Commons, and retired from office with the rest of his colleagues on the formation of the Rockingham ministry in July 1765. In May 1766 North declined the offer of a vice-treasurership of Ireland from Rockingham after considerable hesitation (Lord Albemarle, Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham, i. 345). On 19 Aug. 1766 he was appointed by Chatham joint-paymaster of the forces with George Cooke, and was admitted a member of the privy council on 10 Dec. following (London Gazette, 1766, Nos. 10651 and 10684). Henceforth North acted as a consistent advocate of the king's principles of government. In March 1767 Chatham, indignant with Charles Townshend's conduct with regard to the East India question, offered the post of chancellor of the exchequer and the leadership of the House of Commons to North, who refused it (Chatham Correspondence, iii. 235). Townshend, however, died on 4 Sept. following, and North, notwithstanding his dread of the persistent criticism of George Grenville (Lord John Russell, Memorials of Fox, i. 120), at length accepted the post. He thereupon resigned the paymastership of the forces, and was sworn in as chancellor of the exchequer on 7 Oct. 1767 (Walpole, Letters, v. 67, n.) Urged on by the king, and supported by steady majorities in the commons, North, as leader of the house, succeeded on 17 Feb. 1769 in having Wilkes declared incapable of sitting in parliament and in seating the ministerial candidate, Colonel Luttrell, in his place on 15 April following. North had a great contempt for popularity, and in a review of his own political career on 2 March 1769 he stated that he had never voted for any one of the popular measures of the last seven years, especially referring to his support of the cider tax and of the American Stamp Act, and to his opposition to Wilkes, to the reduction of the land tax, and to the Nullum Tempus Act (Cavendish, Parliamentary Debates, i. 299–300). On 1 May 1769 the cabinet, on North's motion, decided by a majority of one to retain Charles Townshend's American tea duty. This decision, which rendered war inevitable, was confirmed by the House of Commons on 5 March 1770 by 204 votes to 142 (ib. i. 483–500, and the Duke of Grafton's Memoirs quoted in Mahon's History of England, v. 365 and xxxi.). Meanwhile North, at the earnest entreaties of the king, had become first lord of the treasury on Grafton's resignation in January 1770.
North's assumption of office seemed a forlorn hope. He had to face an opposition led by Chatham, Rockingham, and Grenville, and to rely for his chief support on placemen, pensioners, and the Bedfords. There was, however, no real union between the parties of Chatham and Rockingham, and after Grenville's death in November 1770, his followers, under the Earl of Suffolk, joined the ministerial ranks. In November 1770, and again in February 1771, North made an able defence of the negotiations with France and Spain in reference to the Falkland Islands, a dispute concerning which had nearly led to war (Cavendish, Parliamentary Debates, ii. 75–9, 296–9). The session of 1770–1 was mainly occupied by the attempt of the House of Commons to prevent the publication of its debates and the consequent quarrel with the city of London. At the instigation of the king North, contrary to his own convictions, committed the blunder of making a ministerial question of the matter. During the riots which ensued he was assaulted on his way down to the house, his chariot demolished, and his hat captured by the mob (Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 302). To North was addressed the fortieth ‘Letter of Junius’ (22 Aug. 1770), on the subject of Colonel Luttrell's appointment to the post of adjutant-general of the army in Ireland. Luttrell resigned the post in September. In 1772 and the two following years North successfully opposed the propositions which were made for the relief of the clergy and others from subscription to the Thirty-nine articles, arguing that ‘relaxation in matters of this kind, instead of reforming, would increase that dissoluteness of religious principle which so much prevails, and is the characteristic of this sceptical age’ (Parl. Hist. xvii. 272–4, 756–7, 1326). In 1772 and 1773 he allowed bills for the relief of dissenters to pass the commons, preferring to leave the odium of rejecting them to the lords (ib. xvii. 431–46, 759–91). The Royal Marriage Act (12 George III, c. 11), which was passed in 1772, was supported by North with considerable reluctance. In the same year North, who desired to banish the discussion of Indian affairs from the House of Commons, consented to the appointment of two select committees. Their reports resulted in an act which allowed the East India Company to export tea to America free of any duty save that which might be levied there (13 George III, c. 44), and in the Regulating Act (13 George III, c. 63). In May 1773 North supported a motion censuring Clive's conduct in India, but he did not make the question a government one, and subsequently changed his opinion on the subject (Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. Append. 397). On 16 Dec. 1773 the ships carrying the tea exported by the East India Company under the act previously mentioned were attacked in Boston harbour. Though the news of this outrage had not arrived, North was fully conscious of the gravity of the situation, and was the only member of the privy council who did not join in the laughter and applause which greeted Wedderburn's famous attack upon Franklin (Dr. Priestley in the Monthly Magazine for February 1803, p. 2). In March 1774 North introduced the Boston Port Bill and the Massachusetts Government Bill, which were passed by large majorities. He was now firmly established in power, and on 6 March 1774 Chatham expressed the opinion that ‘North serves the crown more successfully and more sufficiently upon the whole than any other man now to be found could do’ (Chatham Correspondence, iv. 332–333). On 20 Feb. 1775 North carried a resolution that, so long as the colonies taxed themselves, with the consent of the king and parliament, no other taxes should be laid upon them. The debate on this proposal, which was very unpopular with the Bedfords, is graphically described by Gibbon in a letter to Holroyd (Miscell. Works, 1796, i. 490). The concession, however, came too late, and the skirmish at Lexington on 19 April 1775 made peace impossible. After Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga (17 Oct. 1777), and the failure of the commission appointed to treat with the colonists, North lost all hope of success, and repeatedly asked permission to resign (Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ii. 125, et seq.) The king refused to accept his resignation, though he allowed negotiations to be opened with Chatham to induce him to join the government, on the understanding that he should support ‘the fundamentals of the present administration’ (ib. ii. 149). This and subsequent attempts to strengthen the ministry failed, and North remained in office against his better judgment, a course which it is impossible to justify. In 1778 he reappointed Warren Hastings governor-general of India, though he disapproved of many of his acts, and had unsuccessfully tried in 1776 to induce the court of proprietors to recall him. In 1779 Lord Weymouth and Lord Gower seceded from North's ministry. In a curious letter to the king with reference to the reasons of Lord Gower's resignation, North owns that he ‘holds in his heart, and has held for these three years, just the same opinion with Lord Gower’ (Mahon, History of England, vol. vi. Appendix, p. xxviii). In the session of 1779–80 North succeeded in granting free-trade to Ireland, a policy which had been previously thwarted by the jealousy of the English manufacturers. On 6 April 1780 North opposed Dunning's famous resolution against the influence of the crown, as being ‘an abstract proposition perfectly inconclusive and altogether unconsequential’ (Parl. Hist. xxi. 362–4). During the Gordon riots North's house in Downing Street was threatened by the mob, and only saved by the timely arrival of the troops (Wraxall, Hist. and Posth. Memoirs, i. 237–239). North is said to have received the news of Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown (19 Oct. 1781) ‘as he would have taken a ball in his breast, opening his arms, and exclaiming wildly “O God! it is all over!”’ (ib. ii. 138–139; but see the Cornwallis Correspondence, 1859, i. 129, n., where certain inaccuracies in Wraxall's story are pointed out). On 27 Feb. 1782 Conway's motion against the further prosecution of the American war was carried by 234 to 215 votes (Parl. Hist. xxii. 1064–85), and on 15 March following a vote of want of confidence in the government was only rejected by a majority of nine (ib. xxii. 1170–1211). North now determined to resign in spite of the king, and on 20 March announced his resignation in the House of Commons, before Lord Surrey was able to move a resolution for the dismissal of the ministry, of which he had previously given notice (ib. xxii. 1214–19). On resigning his posts of first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, the king is said to have ‘parted with him rudely without thanking him, adding, “Remember, my lord, that it is you who desert me, not I you”’ (Walpole, Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 521).
North's government was what he afterwards called a ‘government by departments.’ He himself was rather the agent than the responsible adviser of the king, who practically directed the policy of the ministry, even on the minutest points. North would never allow himself to be called prime minister, maintaining that ‘there was no such thing in the British constitution’ (Brougham, Historical Sketches, i. 392). He was nicknamed Lord-deputy North on account of his supposed connection with Bute (Chatham Correspondence, iii. 443), for which, however, there was no foundation (Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. App. p. 209). His earlier budgets gained him a considerable reputation, but his financial policy towards the close of his ministry became unpopular, owing in a great measure to the extravagant terms of the loan of 1781. During his term of office the national debt was more than doubled. As a financier he was lacking in originality, acting to a great extent on the principles of Adam Smith, but, ‘while accepting the suggestions for increased taxation, he omitted to couple with them that revision and simplification of the tariff and of the taxes which formed the main part of his adopted master's design’ (Buxton, Finance and Politics, 1888, i. 2).
In the debate on the address on 5 Dec. 1782 North, in allusion to Rodney's victory over De Grasse, told the ministry, ‘True, you have conquered; but you have conquered with Philip's troops’ (Parl. Hist. xxiii. 254). He still had a following of from 160 to 170 in the House of Commons (Buckingham, Court and Cabinets of George III, i. 158), and when Fox and Shelburne quarrelled, a coalition between one of them and North became necessary to carry on the government of the country. An alliance between North and Shelburne, which would have been the natural outcome of the situation, was frustrated by the hostility of Pitt and the over cautious hesitation of Dundas. North and Fox had never been personal enemies in spite of their political differences. North, moreover, was anxious to show that he was not a mere puppet in the king's hands, and was also desirous of avoiding a hostile inquiry into the American war. At length, through the efforts of his eldest son, George Augustus (see below), Lord Loughborough, John Townshend, William Adam [q. v.], and William Eden [q. v.], the coalition with Fox was effected (Lord John Russell, Memorials of Fox, ii. 20 et seq.; Auckland, Journals and Correspondence, 1861, i. 1 et seq.), and the combined followers of North and Fox defeated the ministry on 17 Feb. 1783 by 224 votes to 208 (Parl. Hist. xxii. 493), and again on the 21st by 207 votes to 190 (ib. xxii. 571). On the 24th Shelburne resigned. The king charged North ‘with treachery and ingratitude of the blackest nature’ (Buckingham, Court and Cabinets of George III, i. 303), and vainly endeavoured to detach him from Fox and to induce him once more to take the treasury. George was, however, compelled on 2 April to appoint North and Fox joint secretaries of state under the Duke of Portland as first lord of the treasury, North taking the home department. The only adherents of North who were admitted to the coalition cabinet were Lords Stormont and Carlisle (ib. i. 141–230, and Walpole, Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 588–612). As a personal arrangement the coalition was successful. ‘I do assure you,’ wrote Fox to the Duke of Manchester on 21 Sept. 1783, ‘… that it is impossible for people to act more cordially together, and with less jealousy than we have done’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. App. ii. p. 133). In the country, however, it was extremely unpopular, and even North's own constituency of Banbury subsequently thanked the king for dismissing it (London Gazette, 1784, No. 12521). The only important public measure of the coalition government was the East India Bill. Though it properly lay in his department, North had little to do with the bill, which he described as ‘a good receipt to knock up an administration’ (John Nicholls, Recollections, 1822, i. 56). Though carried through the commons by large majorities, it was rejected by the lords on 17 Dec. 1783 by 95 votes to 76, owing to the unconstitutional use of the king's name by Lord Temple (Parl. Hist. xxiv. 196). The ministry was dismissed by the king on the following day. When the messenger arrived for the seals, North, who was in bed with his wife, said that if any one wished to see him, they must see Lady North too, and accordingly the messenger entered the bedroom (manuscript quoted in Massey, Hist. of England, vol. iii. 1860, p. 209, note; see Wraxall, Hist. and Posth. Memoirs, iii. 198).
Henceforward, to the end of his life, North acted with the opposition against Pitt. In May 1785 he expressed a strong opinion in favour of a union with Ireland (Parl. Hist. xxv. 633). At the beginning of 1787 his sight began to fail, and he soon became totally blind. North approved of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, which was decided on in March 1787, though he declined to act as a manager (Earl Stanhope, Life of Pitt, 1861, i. 352). In the same year, and again in 1789, he opposed the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (Parl. Hist. xxvi. 818–23, xxviii. 16–22, 26–7). By 1788 his personal following in the house had dwindled to seventeen (Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. ix. p. 373). He took a considerable part in the debates on the Regency Bill in the session of 1788–9, and deprecated any discussion on the abstract right of the Prince of Wales (Parl. Hist. xxvii. 749–52). On 4 Aug. 1790 he succeeded his father as second Earl of Guilford, and took his seat in the House of Lords on 25 Nov. following (Journals of the House of Lords, xxxix. 6). He spoke in the House of Lords for the first time on 1 April 1791, when he attacked Pitt's Russian policy (Parl. Hist. xxix. 86–93). He only spoke there on three other occasions (ib. pp. 537–8, 855–60, 1003–6). His last years were chiefly spent in retirement with his wife and family, to whom he was deeply attached. Walpole, in a charming account of a visit to Bushey in October 1787, says that he ‘never saw a more interesting scene. Lord North's spirits, good humour, wit, sense, drollery, are as perfect as ever—the unremitting attention of Lady North and his children most touching. … If ever loss of sight could be compensated, it is by so affectionate a family’ (Letters, ix. 114). Gibbon also bears testimony to ‘the lively vigour of his mind, and the felicity of his incomparable temper’ during his blindness (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. iv. 1788, p. iv; see Miscellaneous Works, 1815, iii. 637–8). North died of dropsy on 5 Aug. 1792 at his house in Grosvenor Square, London, aged 60. He was buried on the 14th of the same month in the family vault at All Saints Church, Wroxton, Oxfordshire, where there is a mural monument to him by Flaxman.
North was an easy-going, obstinate man, with a quick wit and a sweet temper. He was neither a great statesman nor a great orator, though his tact was unfailing and his powers as a debater were unquestioned. Burke, in the ‘Letter to a Noble Lord,’ describes him as ‘a man of admirable parts, of general knowledge, of a versatile understanding, fitted for every sort of business, of infinite wit and pleasantry, of a delightful temper, and with a mind most perfectly disinterested;’ adding, however, that ‘it would be only to degrade myself by a weak adulation, and not to honour the memory of a great man, to deny that he wanted something of the vigilance and spirit of command that the time required’ (Works, 1815, viii. 14). Several specimens of North's undoubted powers of humour will be found in the ‘European Magazine’ (xxx. 82–4), ‘The Georgian Era’ (i. 317), and scattered through the pages of Walpole and Wraxall. In face North bore a striking resemblance, especially in his youth, to George III, which caused Frederick, prince of Wales, to suggest to the first Earl of Guilford that one of their wives must have played them false (Wraxall, Hist. and Posth. Memoirs, i. 310, and Notes and Queries, 1st ser. vii. 207, 317, viii. 183, 230, 303, x. 52). His figure was clumsy and his movements were awkward. According to Walpole, ‘two large prominent eyes that rolled about to no purpose (for he was utterly short-sighted), a wide mouth, thick lips, and inflated visage gave him the air of a blind trumpeter’ (Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 78); while Charles Townshend called him a ‘great, heavy, booby-looking seeming changeling’ (Correspondence of George III with Lord North, i. lxxxi).
North received a large number of personal distinctions. On 3 July 1769 he was made an honorary LL.D. of Cambridge. On 14 June 1771 his wife was appointed ranger of Bushey Park (ib. i. 73–4), and on 18 June 1772 he was invested a knight of the Garter (Nicolas, Hist. of the Orders of British Knighthood, 1842, ii. lxxii), an honour conferred on members of the House of Commons in only three other instances, namely, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Castlereagh, and Lord Palmerston. On 3 Oct. 1772 he was unanimously elected chancellor of Oxford University in succession to George, third earl of Lichfield, and on the 10th of the same month was created a D.C.L. of the university. On 15 March 1774 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Somerset. In September 1777 he received from the king a present of 20,000l. for the payment of his debts (Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ii. 82–3, 428). It appears that at this time North's estates were worth only 2,500l. a year, and that his father made him little or no allowance (Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. App. vi. 18). On 16 June 1778 he accepted the post of lord warden of the Cinque ports, at the king's special wish (Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ii. 193–5, but see Walpole, Memoirs of George III, iv. 80 note), the nominal salary of which was 4,000l., though North never received more than 1,000l. a year (Parl. Hist. xx. 926–7).
A portrait of North as chancellor of the exchequer, by Nathaniel Dance, R.A., is at Wroxton Abbey, and is engraved in Lodge's ‘Portraits.’ Another portrait by the same artist is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Cat. of the Guelph Exhibition, 1891, No. 104). A crayon sketch by Dance is in the National Portrait Gallery (Cat. No. 276). Portraits of North were also painted by Reynolds (Leslie and Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1865, i. 155 and 253), Ramsay, Romney, and others. There are numerous engravings of North, and he was frequently depicted in the caricatures of the time.
Four copies of his Latin verse are printed in the first volume of the ‘Musæ Etonenses,’ 1795, pp. 1, 13, 26, 28. Watt erroneously ascribes to him the authorship of ‘A Letter recommending a New Mode of Taxation,’ London, 1770, 8vo. A number of North's letters are preserved at the British Museum among the Egerton and Additional MSS.
North married, on 20 May 1756, Anne, daughter and heiress of George Speke of White Lackington, Somerset, by whom he had four sons—viz.: (1) George Augustus, afterwards third Earl of Guilford (see below); (2) Francis, afterwards fourth Earl of Guilford (see below); (3) Frederick, afterwards fifth Earl of Guilford [q. v.]; (4) Dudley, who was born on 31 May 1777, and died on 18 June 1779; and three daughters: (1) Catherine Anne, born on 16 Feb. 1760, married, on 26 Sept. 1789, Sylvester Douglas, afterwards Lord Glenbervie [q. v.], and died on 6 Feb. 1817; (2) Anne, born on 8 Jan. 1764, who became the third wife of John Baker-Holroyd, first baron Sheffield (afterwards Earl of Sheffield) [q. v.], in January 1798, and died on 18 Jan. 1832; and (3) Charlotte, born in December 1770, who married, on 2 April 1800, Lieutenant-colonel the Hon. John Lindsay, son of James, fifth earl of Balcarres, and died on 25 Oct. 1849. North's widow died on 17 Jan. 1797.
George Augustus North, third Earl of Guilford (1757–1802), born on 11 Sept. 1757, was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 1 Nov. 1774, and graduated M.A. on 4 June 1777. He represented Harwich from April 1778 to March 1784, Wootton Basset from April 1784 to June 1790, and Petersfield until his father's accession to the peerage, when he was elected for Banbury, for which he continued to sit until his father's death. He was appointed secretary and comptroller of the household to Queen Charlotte on 13 Jan. 1781. Though a supporter of his father's ministry his sympathies were largely with the whigs. Hence he was one of the chief advocates of the coalition between his father and Fox, and it was at his house in Old Burlington Street, Piccadilly, that the first meeting of the new allies took place on 14 Feb. 1783 (Lord John Russell, Memorials of Fox, ii. 37). On the formation of the ministry in April 1783 he became his father's under-secretary at the home office, and his name was subsequently set down as one of the commissioners in the East India Bill ({{sc|Lord John Russell}, Life and Times of Fox, 1859, ii. 42). He left office with the rest of the ministry in December 1783, and was dismissed from his post in the queen's household. He acted as footman on Fox's coach when it was drawn by the populace (14 Feb. 1784) from the King's Arms Tavern to Devonshire House (Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. App. vi. p. 66). In July 1792 he refused the governor-generalship of India, which was offered him by Pitt (Malmesbury, Diaries and Correspondence, 1844, ii. 469, 472). He succeeded his father as third Earl of Guilford on 5 Aug. 1792, and took his seat on 13 Dec. following in the House of Lords (Journals of the House of Lords, xxxix. 495), where he was a frequent speaker. He died in Stratton Street, Piccadilly, on 20 April 1802, after a lingering illness, from the effects of a fall from his horse, and was buried at Wroxton. He married, on 24 Sept. 1785, Maria Frances Mary, youngest daughter of the Hon. George Hobart, afterwards third Earl of Buckinghamshire, who died on 22 April 1794, having had four children: Francis, who died an infant in July 1786; Frederick, who died an infant in September 1790; George Augustus, who died an infant in February 1793; and Maria, born on 26 Dec. 1793, who married, on 29 July 1818, John, second Marquis of Bute, and died on 11 Sept. 1841. He married, secondly, on 28 Feb. 1796, Susannah, daughter of Thomas Coutts, the London banker, by whom he had three children: Susannah, born on 16 Feb. 1797, who married, on 18 Nov. 1835, Captain (afterwards colonel) John Sidney Doyle, and died on 5 March 1884; Georgiana, born on 6 Nov. 1798, who died unmarried on 25 Aug. 1835; and Frederick Augustus, who died an infant in January 1802. His widow survived him many years, and died on 25 Sept. 1837. He was succeeded in the earldom by his brother, Francis North, but the barony of North fell into abeyance between his three daughters. On the death of her two sisters it devolved, according to a resolution of the House of Lords of 15 July 1837, upon Lady Susannah Doyle (ib. lxix. 641–2), whose husband took the name of North on 20 Aug. 1838.
Francis North, fourth Earl of Guilford (1761–1817), second son of ‘Lord North,’ born on 25 Dec. 1761, entered the army in 1777, but quitted it on attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel in 1794. He succeeded to the earldom on 20 April 1802, and died at Pisa on 11 Jan. 1817, leaving no issue. He was a patron of the stage, and author of a dramatic piece entitled ‘The Kentish Baron,’ which was produced with success at the Haymarket in June 1791, and was printed in the same year, London, 8vo.
[Correspondence of George III with Lord North, edited by W. B. Donne, 1867; Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George III, 1845; Walpole's Journal of the Reign of George III, 1859; Walpole's Letters, 1857–9; Chatham Correspondence, 1838–40; Political Memoranda of Francis, fifth Duke of Leeds (Camden Soc.); Sir N. W. Wraxall's Hist. and Posthumous Memoirs, 1884; Duke of Buckingham's Court and Cabinets of George III, 1853, vol. i.; Lord Albemarle's Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham, 1852; Lord John Russell's Memorials of C. J. Fox, 1853, vols. i. and ii.; Trevelyan's Early History of C. J. Fox, 1880; Sir G. C. Lewis's Administrations of Great Britain, 1864, pp. 1–84; Lord Brougham's Historical Sketches of the Statesmen of George III, 1839, i. 48–69, 391–7; History of Lord North's Administration, 1781–2; Lord Mahon's History of England, 1851–4, vols. v. vi. and vii.; Lecky's History of England, 1882–7, vols. iii. iv. and v.; May's Constitutional History of England, 1875; Collins's Peerage of England, 1812, iv. 481–5; Doyle's Official Baronage, 1886, ii. 87–90; Hasted's History of Kent, 1799, iv. 190–1; Official Return of Lists of Members of Parliament, pt. ii. pp. 115, 129, 141, 151, 154, 164, 167, 180, 183, 192, and 193; Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, 1715–1886, pp. 1028–9; Historical Register, vol. xvii. Chron. Diary, p. 19; Haydn's Book of Dignities, 1890.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.207
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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