Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/259

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

he greatly improved and embellished. Pope, in the ‘Epilogue to the Satires’ (Dialogue II, pp. 66–7), refers to

Esher's peaceful grove
Where Kent and nature vie for Pelham's love;

and Thomson to ‘Esher's groves,’ where ‘from courts and senates Pelham finds repose’ (Seasons, ‘Summer,’ ll. 1429–32). Esher Place was sold by Pelham's grandson Lewis, second baron Sondes, in July 1805, to Mr. John Spicer, who pulled down Pelham's house with the exception of the old gatehouse, known as Wolsey's Tower, which is still standing.

‘An Ode to the Right Honourable Henry Pelham, Esq., on his being appointed first Commissioner of the Treasury,’ appears in the ‘Works of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams’ (1822, ii. 71–3). Garrick's well-known ode on Pelham's death was first published in the ‘London Magazine’ for March 1754 (xxiii. 135–6). Pelham's correspondence with Lord Essex 1732–6 (Addit. MSS. 27732–5), and with the Duke of Newcastle and others, 1716–54 (ib. 32686–33066), is preserved in the British Museum. His letters to President Dundas, 1748–52, are among the manuscripts at Arniston (Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. App. p. 415). Pelham was a frequent subject of caricatures, in many of which he was styled ‘King Henry the Ninth’ (cf. Cat. Satirical and Political Prints and Drawings in British Museum, ed. Stephens and Hawkins).

Pelham married, on 29 October 1726, Lady Catherine Manners, eldest daughter of John, second duke of Rutland, by whom he had two sons and six daughters. Both his sons died in November 1739, of ulcerated sore throat, which became subsequently known as the ‘Pelham fever’ (Coxe, Memoirs of the Pelham Administration, ii. 305). Four of his daughters survived infancy, viz. (1) Catherine, born 24 July 1727, who married on 3 Oct. 1744, her cousin, Henry Fynes Clinton, ninth earl of Lincoln, afterwards second duke of Newcastle (cr. 1756), and died on 27 July 1760; (2) Frances, born on 18 Aug. 1728, who died unmarried on 10 Jan. 1804; (3) Grace, born in January 1735, who married, on 12 Oct. 1752, the Hon. Lewis Watson, afterwards first baron Sondes, and died on 31 July 1777; and (4) Mary, born in September 1739, who died unmarried. His widow, who was ranger of Greenwich Park, died at her house at Whitehall on 17 Feb. 1780, aged 79.

There is a portrait of Pelham by Hoare of Bath in the National Portrait Gallery. Another portrait was exhibited by the Duke of Newcastle at the Loan Collection of National Portraits at South Kensington in 1867 (Catalogue, No. 336); and a third, also by William Hoare, was lent by the Earl of Chichester to the Guelph exhibition in 1891. There are engravings of Pelham by Houston, after both Hoare and Shackleton.

[Besides Coxe's Memoirs of the Pelham Administration and the other works quoted in the text, the following books have been consulted: Lecky's Hist. of England in the Eighteenth Century, 1883, vol. i.; Mahon's Hist. of England, 1858, vols. iii. iv.; Torrens's History of Cabinets, 1894; Dodington's Diary, 1784; Chesterfield's Letters, 1845, ii. 457; Macaulay's Essays, 1885, pp. 286–7, 293, 299–303; Ballantyne's Life of Carteret, 1887; Earle's English Premiers, 1871, i. 79–126; Georgian Era, 1832, i . 298–9; Lower's Notices of the Pelham Family, 1873, pp. 49–51; Horsfield's Sussex, 1835, i. 182–5, 351–3; Brayley's Surrey, 1850, ii. 435–441; Thorne's Environs of London, 1876, i. 203–205; Collins's Peerage of England, 1812, v. 518–521; Burke's Peerage, 1894, p. 280; Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, 1500–1714, iii. 1138; Alumni Westmonasterienses, 1852, pp. 544, 555, 556; Haydn's Book of Dignities, 1890; Official Return of Lists of Members of Parliament, pt. ii. pp. 47, 56, 67, 79, 81, 92, 104; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. vi. 168.]

PELHAM, HENRY THOMAS, third Earl of Chichester (1804–1886), second, but eldest surviving, son of Thomas, second earl [q. v.], born in Stratton Street, Piccadilly, on 25 Aug. 1804, was educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge. On 24 April 1824 he entered the army as a cornet in the 6th dragoons, but, by the influence of the Duke of Wellington, was able on 14 Oct. of the same year to exchange into the royal horse-guards (Addit. MS. 33230, ff. 22–4). He became lieutenant in 1827, captain (unattached) in January 1828, and major in the army in 1841. In 1844 he resigned his commission. He was afterwards an active supporter of the volunteer movement. In 1825 the Duke of Newcastle invited him, without making any stipulation regarding Pelham's political principles, to accept his nomination for the parliamentary representation of the duke's borough of Newark; but Pelham succeeded to the earldom in 1826, before the election, and Mr. Gladstone became member in his stead. Chichester held whig opinions, but was not an ardent partisan. He was deeply interested in religious, social, and educational questions. On 22 Feb. 1841 he was appointed an ecclesiastical commissioner, and on 30 Jan. 1847 became a commissioner to report on the question of equalising the pecuniary value of episcopal sees. When the Church Estates'