Leonard Courtney, 1st Baron Courtney of Penwith: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 15:05, 16 April 2011
Leonard Henry Courtney, 1st Baron Courtney of Penwith PC (6 July 1832 – 11 May 1918) was a British politician, academic and man of letters. He was a member of William Ewart Gladstone's second administration from 1880 to 1883 and served as Chairman of Ways and Means (Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons) between 1886 and 1893.
Background and education
Courtney was born at Penzance, Cornwall, the eldest son of John Sampson Courtney, a banker, and Sarah, daughter of John Mortimer.[1] Two of his brothers, John Mortimer Courtney (1838–1920), and William Prideaux Courtney (1845–1913), also attained public distinction, the former in the government service in Canada (from 1869, retiring in 1906), rising to be deputy-minister of finance, and the latter in the British civil service (1865–1892), and as a prominent man of letters and bibliographer. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, where he was Second Wrangler and first Smith's prizeman, and elected a fellow of his college.[2] He was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1858. From 1872 to 1875 he was professor of political economy at University College, London.[1]
Political career
In December 1876, after a previous unsuccessful attempt, Courtney was elected to parliament for Liskeard as a Liberal. He continued to represent the borough, and Bodmin into which it was merged by the Reform Act of 1885, until 1900, when his attitude towards the South African War — he was one of the foremost of the so-called Pro-Boer Party — compelled his retirement.
Until 1885 he was a devoted adherent of William Ewart Gladstone, particularly in finance and foreign affairs. In 1880 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, in 1881 Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies and in 1882 Financial Secretary to the Treasury. He was known as a stubborn fighter for principle, and after finding that the government's Reform Bill in 1884 contained no recognition of the scheme for proportional representation, to which he was deeply committed, he resigned office. He refused to support Gladstone's Home Rule Bill in 1885, and was one of those who chiefly contributed to its rejection, and whose reputation for unbending integrity and intellectual eminence gave solidity to the Liberal Unionist party.
In 1886 Courtney was elected Chairman of Ways and Means (Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons), and was sworn of the Privy Council in 1889. His efficiency in this office seemed to mark him out for the speakership after the 1895 general election. A Liberal Unionist, however, could only be elected by Conservative votes, and he had made himself objectionable to a large section of the party by his independent attitude on various questions, on which his Liberalism outweighed his party loyalty. He would in any case have been incapacitated by an affection of the eyesight, which for a while threatened to withdraw him from public life altogether.
After 1895 Courtney's divergences from the Unionist party on questions other than Irish politics became gradually more marked. He became known in the House of Commons principally for his candid criticism of the measures introduced by his nominal leaders, and he was rather to be ranked among the Opposition than as a Ministerialist; and when the crisis with the Transvaal came in 1899, Courtney's views, which remained substantially what they were when he supported the settlement after Majuba in 1881, had plainly become incompatible with his position even as a nominal follower of Lord Salisbury and Joseph Chamberlain.
He gradually reverted to formal membership of the Liberal party, and in January 1906 unsuccessfully contested a Edinburgh West as a supporter of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman at the general election. Among the birthday honours of 1906 he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Courtney of Penwith, in the County of Cornwall.[3]
Courtney was a prominent supporter of the women's movement through the influence of his wife and sister-in-law (see below). In earlier years he was a regular contributor to The Times, and he wrote numerous essays in the principal reviews on political and economic subjects. In 1901 he published a book on The Working Constitution of the United Kingdom. He was President of the Royal Statistical Society, 1897-9.[4] He was a great friend of Norman Garstin the artist.
Personal life
Lord Courtney of Penwith married Miss Catherine Potter, daughter of Richard Potter and an elder sister of Beatrice Webb, in 1883. They had no children. He died in May 1918, aged 85, when the peerage became extinct. Lady Courtney of Penwith died in 1929.[1]
References
- ^ a b c thepeerage.com Leonard Henry Courtney, 1st and last Baron Courtney of Penwith
- ^ "Courtney, Leonard Henry (CRTY851LH)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ "No. 27933". The London Gazette. 20 July 1906.
- ^ "Royal Statistical Society Presidents". Royal Statistical Society. Retrieved 6 August 2010.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the - Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages [self-published source] [better source needed]
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs
External links
- 1832 births
- 1918 deaths
- Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
- Cornish politicians
- Liberal Unionist Party MPs
- Liberal Party (UK) MPs
- Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
- Members of the United Kingdom Parliament for constituencies in Cornwall
- People in Cornish history
- People from Penzance
- Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society
- UK MPs 1874–1880
- UK MPs 1880–1885
- UK MPs 1885–1886
- UK MPs 1886–1892
- UK MPs 1892–1895
- UK MPs 1895–1900
- Second Wranglers