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Henry Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

Donald Grove Barnes
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Extract

In most histories of Great Britain in the eighteenth century the ministry of Henry Pelham, 1743 to 1754, is accorded small space. For example, Basil Williams' The Whig Supremacy, in the Oxford History of England, devotes only slightly more than thirty pages to these eleven years. No full-scale biography of Pelham has appeared since Archdeacon Coxe's enormous two-volume work in 1829, and this, as Macaulay wrote of a similar work, was the product of the author's scissors and paste pot rather than of his pen. Much has been done on phases of the career of Newcastle, but no complete biography has been attempted. It has been suggested that the enormous mass of material in the Newcastle and Hardwicke papers available in the Manuscript Room of the British Museum has scared off possible biographers. This, however, is not the only explanation. At one time I gave serious consideration to devoting several years to a full biography of the Duke; but in the end it was the quality of Newcastle and not the quantity of the material which deterred me.

The neglect of Pelham, however, is more puzzling; and appears to be a case of unsalutary neglect. Possibly the best explanation lies in the Pittolatry (if the term is allowable) of the great majority of both English and American historians writing on this period. Usually Pelham is not even ranked as a John the Baptist to William Pitt, but rather is treated in the same relationship to him as the older interpretation of the Old Regime in France is to the French Revolution and the Unreformed House of Commons to the Reform Bill of 1832.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , May 1962 , pp. 62 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1962

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References

1. The general impression referred to in this sentence is difficult to substantiate with direct quotations and footnotes because it is based on the gradual deposits of historical silt. Since this is true of many of the conclusions given in this article I have reduced footnotes to a minimum. In some instances I have removed footnotes because they seemed to be misleading when they referred to only a small part of the generalization. I expect to publish a monograph with the same title as this article and in these few pages I am giving some of the conclusions that I have reached on the relative parts played by Pelham and Newcastle during the thirty years before 1754.

2. Quoted in Wilson, P. W., William Pitt the Younger (New York, 1930), p. 21Google Scholar.

3. Nulle, Stebelton H., Thomas Pelham-Holles Duke of Newcastle … 1693-1724 (Philadelphia, 1931), pp. 171–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. Ibid, p. 170.

5. Add. MSS., 33,066, ff. 258-59. Newcastle Papers, Vol. 382.

6. There is more than one version of this story. The one in Hale, Sarah J.'s edition of The Lerrers of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (New York, 1859), p. 171Google Scholar, reads: “I was told by a very good author, who is deep in the secret, that at this very minute, there is a bill cooping up at a hunting-seat in Norfolk, to have not taken out of the commandments and clapped into the creed, the ensuing session of Parliament.” Then follows an account of the part played by each of the guests.

7. Add. MSS., 35407, S. 297-98; Owen, John B., The Rise of the Pelhams (London, 1957), p. 319Google Scholar.

8. SirLodge, Richard, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Diplomacy, 1740-1748 (London, 1930), p. 187Google Scholar.

9. Dictionary of National Biography, XV, 691Google Scholar.

10. Walpole, Horace, Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second (London, 1847), I, 378Google Scholar.

11. Hardwicke, Lord, Walpoliana (London, 1783), p. 19Google Scholar.

12. Owen, , Rise of the Pelhams, p. 319Google Scholar.

13. Add. MSS. 33,066, f. 258.

14. Ibid., f. 265.

15. Walpole, , Reign of George II, I, 282–83Google Scholar.