Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Joseph_Wright_of_Derby._Two_Girls_Dressing_a_Kitten_by_Candlelight._c._1768-70.jpg/220px-Joseph_Wright_of_Derby._Two_Girls_Dressing_a_Kitten_by_Candlelight._c._1768-70.jpg)
Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston, FRS (4 December 1739 – 17 April 1802), was a British politician.
Life
Temple was a son of Henry Temple (son of Henry Temple, 1st Viscount Palmerston) and Jane, daughter of Sir John Barnard, Lord Mayor of London.[2]
He was born into 'the Ascendancy', the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. His family owned a vast country estate in the north of County Sligo in the west of Ireland. He succeeded to the peerage in 1757, and was educated at Clare College, Cambridge from 1757 to 1759.[3]
As a member of the British House of Commons, he represented the constituencies of East Looe between 1762 and 1768, Southampton between 1768 and 1774, Hastings between 1774 and 1784, Boroughbridge between 1784 and 1790, Newport, Isle of Wight between 1790 and 1796, and Winchester between 1796 and his death in 1802.
He was appointed to the Board of Trade in 1765, was a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty between 1766 and 1777, and was a Lord of the Treasury from 1777 to 1782.
In 1763 Temple journeyed to Italy, staying with Voltaire at Ferney en route. He reached Rome in 1764, and from there visited Paestum, south of Naples. He bought antiquities and paintings from Gavin Hamilton, antiquities from Giovanni Battista Piranesi, paintings from Angelica Kauffman, cameos from Giovanni Pichler and sculpture from Joseph Nollekens.[4]
He died on 17 April 1802 at his house in Hanover Square, Westminster,[2] and left behind his wife and children. His son, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century.
A portrait of Henry Temple by Angelica Kauffman is held at Broadlands, Hampshire.
References
- ^ Bryant, Julius (December 1996). "The dark side of The Kitten: A Wright of Derby for Kenwood". Apollo. 144 (418 (new series)): 18–19.
- ^ a b Davies, Edward J. (2008). "The Ancestry of Lord Palmerston". The Genealogist. 22: 62–77.
- ^ "Palmerston, Henry (Temple), Viscount (PLMN757HT)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ Bignamini, Ilaria; Hornsby, Clare (2010). Digging and Dealing in Eighteenth-Century Rome. New Haven CT: Yale University Press. pp. 313–315. ISBN 978-0300160437.
Further reading
- Brian Connell, Portrait of a Whig Peer. Compiled from the papers of the Second Viscount Palmerston 1739 - 1802 (1957. London)
- Use dmy dates from January 2012
- 1739 births
- 1802 deaths
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- Members of The Club
- Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies
- Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for constituencies in Cornwall
- British MPs 1761–68
- British MPs 1768–74
- British MPs 1774–80
- British MPs 1780–84
- British MPs 1784–90
- British MPs 1790–96
- British MPs 1796–1800
- Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
- Viscounts in the Peerage of Ireland
- UK MPs 1801–02
- Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge
- Parents of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom