bassy, and the presidency of the board of control, Pelham joined the Addington ministry as home secretary in 1801. In July of the same year, on his father's promotion to the earldom of Chichester, he took his seat in the House of Lords under his father's former title of Baron Pelham of Stanmer. He told Lord Malmesbury he only joined the cabinet by the express wish of the king. His relations with Addington were never smooth. He resented the withdrawal of colonial affairs from his department, and had differences with the prime minister both on foreign policy and Irish affairs. As home secretary Pelham had the superintendence of Irish affairs, and made vain efforts to draw all the Irish patronage into the hands of the home office (Colchester, Diary, i. 303 et seq.) In the House of Lords Pelham took the lead in defending the peace of Amiens; but he made a protest in the cabinet, in March 1802, against signing the definitive treaty in the same terms as the preliminaries. He did not resign, because he agreed with his colleagues on all other points (Malmesbury, Diary, iv. 73, 74). Malmesbury records in his diary a little later: ‘Pelham seems to have little influence with his colleagues, or not to consult with them, or be consulted by them’ (ib. iv. 192). When, in 1803, negotiations were opened by Addington with Pitt, Pelham offered to give up his office in order to facilitate matters; but as a recompense he expected the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster for life. The negotiations came to nothing; but Addington took advantage of Pelham's offer to remove him in July 1803 from the home office to the duchy, ‘subject to the usual contingencies.’ On 11 Sept. 1803 Pelham wrote to the king, detailing his grievances against Addington. Malmesbury and Lord Minto (Elliot) both thought Pelham badly treated (cf. Pellew, Sidmouth, ii. 220 n.).
Pelham was deprived of the duchy of Lancaster on Pitt's re-entry into office in May 1804. When Pelham delivered up the seals, the king, without consulting Pitt, gave him the stick of the captain of the yeomen of the guard, adding, ‘It will be less a sinecure than formerly, as I intend living more with my great officers.’ Pelham soon resigned that post, and affected to believe that Pitt had entrapped him into it (Malmesbury, Diary, iv. 326–7). In January 1805, on the death of his father, Pelham became second Earl of Chichester. In March 1806 he declined Windham's offer of the government of the Cape. From May 1807 till 1823 he was joint postmaster-general, and from 1823 till his death was sole holder of the office. In 1815–17 he was president of the Royal Institution. At the coronation of George IV in July 1821 he was ‘assistant carver.’ He died on 4 July 1826.
Pelham was popular among his friends. Minto, in speaking of Pelham's satisfaction at the provision made for Burke in 1789, says: ‘He felt on the subject as if it concerned himself, or rather his own father or brother; for I never saw anybody less thoughtful of himself than Pelham, or more anxious for his friends.’ Lord Holland (to some extent a hostile witness) sums him up as, ‘though somewhat time-serving, a good-natured and prudent man’ (Memoirs of the Whig Party, i. 112); and Sir Jonah Barrington, who saw much of him during his second term of office in Ireland, calls him ‘moderate, honourable, sufficiently firm and sufficiently spirited.’ George III admired in him ‘a peculiar right-headedness.’ Queen Charlotte, writing to Pelham on 15 Aug. 1803, said that the friendship she bore to his wife was ‘almost that of a parent’ (Addit. MS. 33131, f. 85). Pelham was a good landlord, and improved agriculture in Sussex. A portrait of him as Irish secretary was painted by Hoppner and engraved by Reynolds. In 1802 another was executed by the same artist, and a later portrait by Dance was engraved by Daniel.
Pelham married, on 16 July 1801, Mary Henrietta Juliana Osborne, daughter of the fifth Duke of Leeds by his first wife. She died in Grosvenor Place on 21 Oct. 1862, having had four sons and four daughters. Of the latter, one died unmarried. The eldest son died in childhood; the second, Henry Thomas [q. v.], who succeeded to the earldom of Chichester, is, like the fourth son, John Thomas (1811–1894), bishop of Norwich [q. v.], separately noticed.
The third son, Frederick Thomas Pelham (1808–1861), entered the navy in June 1823, was appointed lieutenant in 1830, and commander in 1835. During 1837–8 he commanded the Tweed on the Lisbon station, and for his services received the cross of San Fernando of Spain. On 3 July 1840 he was advanced to post rank; in 1855 was again in the Baltic as captain of the fleet to Sir Richard Saunders Dundas [q. v.] on board the Duke of Wellington. On 6 March 1858 he was promoted to be rear-admiral, and was shortly afterwards appointed a lord commissioner of the admiralty under Dundas. He died on 21 June 1861. He married in 1841 Ellen Kate, daughter of Rowland Mitchell of Upper Harley Street, and left issue (O'Byrne, Nav. Biogr. Dict.; Navy Lists).
[The Pelham or Newcastle MSS. in the British Museum afford full material up to 1804, after
