Family and Education

b. ?1769, o.s. of Henry Pelham† (afterwards Cressett Pelham) of Crowhurst Place and Cound Hall and Jane, da. of Nicholas Hardinge† of Kingston-upon-Thames, Surr. educ. Queens’, Camb. 1787; Clare, Camb. 1789; L. Inn 1791. unm. Took name of Cressett before Pelham with his fa. 28 Aug. 1792; suc. fa. 1803. d. 29 Aug. 1838.

Offices Held

Lt. Suss. militia 1794, capt. 1795-7; maj. W. Salop militia 1808.

Biography

Cressett Pelham was renowned for his eccentricity, largesse and love of field sports. An episode of mental illness in 1797 had interrupted his parliamentary career as Member for Lewes, and in 1801 a commission of lunacy had been taken out against him. He recovered to succeed his father in 1803 to Crowhurst Place and the 7,000-acre Cressett estate of Cound, stayed regularly at Hastings and settled in Shropshire, where he became an enthusiastic sponsor of the county hunt.1 He contributed to the success of his fellow sportsman John Mytton† at the 1819 Shrewsbury by-election, and of the celebrated huntsman Francis Forester at Wenlock in 1820.2 He held aloof from the controversy surrounding the Queen Caroline affair and the county meeting of January 1821, and tried in vain to have the contentious Shropshire distress meeting of 25 Mar. 1822 adjourned.3 His moderation paid dividends when the death in October 1822 of Sir John Kynaston Powell created a vacancy for the county, where he had desisted after testing the ground in September 1821.4 Backed by the absentee Whig peers Darlington (later Cleveland) and Tankerville, and with the co-operation of his erstwhile rivals for their interest, William Lloyd of Aston Hall, Mytton and John Cotes† of Woodcote, he overcame a challenge from the ministerialist Member for Wenlock, William Lacon Childe, to come in unopposed in December at an estimated cost of £20,000.5 Lord Delamere† thought his short speech on the hustings

so juristical, so ambiguous, that the most ingenious cannot discover from anything contained in it, what are his principles, or whether he has any principles at all. Had he spoken a few minutes longer, even he, with all his studied ambiguity, could scarcely have failed to give the world some little insight into his future conduct.6

Cressett Pelham’s remarks could rarely be heard or understood by reporters in the gallery, but he was a busy and voluble county Member. He divided with his Tory colleague Rowland Hill against Catholic relief, 1 Mar., 21 Apr., 10 May, and presented and endorsed hostile petitions from Shropshire and London, 18 Apr., 6, 10 May 1825.7 He opposed the bill restricting the Irish county franchise, 26 Apr. 1825. He divided for parliamentary reform, 20 Feb., 24 Apr., 2 June 1823, 13 Apr. 1826, and proposed legislating so that Parliament would ‘be held from time to time, in the different capitals of the kingdom, instead of being confined to London’, but could find no seconder, 6 Apr. 1824, 19 Apr. 1826.8 As Member for Lewes, he was recalled as a Whig; but as Member for Shropshire he deliberately strove to steer ‘clear between both ... parties’,9 appearing closer to the Whigs before 1831, on account of the better survival of opposition division lists. He voted in condemnation of the peacetime appointment of a lieutenant-general of the ordnance, 19 Feb. 1823, for tax remissions, 28 Feb., 3 Mar., against the national debt reduction bill, 6, 13 Mar., and to cut the grant for colonial agents, 24 Mar. 1823. He presented Whitchurch’s petition against the insolvent debtors bill, 17 Mar.10 He voted for inquiry into the prosecution of the Dublin Orange rioters on which government were defeated, 22 Apr., and during it, 26 May, tried to make a witness disclose precisely which Biblical passages were read to Orangemen at their initiation. He voted to condemn the lord advocate’s handling of the Borthwick case, 3 June, and for inquiry into the currency, 12 June. He divided against the silk bill, 9 June, and the beer duties, 13 June 1823. He spoke, 15 Mar., and presented the Shropshire maltsters’ petitions against the duties on malt and beer, 3, 6, 7 May 1824.11 He opposed the aliens bill as a measure warranted only in wartime, 23 Mar., 12 Apr., when he also voted against receiving the report on the additional churches bill. His remarks of 14 Apr. on the combination laws and the duties on hides and skins, which he also presented petitions against, 3, 12 May, and voted to repeal, 18 May, were ‘totally inaudible’.12 He divided for an advance of capital to, 4 May, and militia reductions in Ireland, 5 May. He presented petitions against colonial slavery, 5 Apr., 24 June, and the indictment in Demerara of the Methodist missionary John Smith, 27 May, which he voted to condemn, 11 June 1824.13 His views on the address, 4 Feb., the St. Katharine’s Docks bill, 22 Feb., and the corn bill, 9 June 1825, were ‘quite inaudible’.14 He opposed the bill outlawing the Catholic Association because of its ‘tendency to restrict popular rights’, 11, 25 Feb., supported the game bill, 7 Mar., and, assisted by the 1st earl of Powis’s heir Lord Clive, 22 Apr., 2 May, had the Shrewsbury poor bill withdrawn.15 He complained that the proposed repeal of the beer duties would fail to benefit the poor and leave the state short of revenue, 5 May, divided steadily between 30 May and 10 June against the award to the duke of Cumberland, and voted for the St. Olave’s tithe bill, 6 June. He divided against the grant for the suppression of vice in Ireland, 13 June 1825. Before the dissolution in 1826 he presented several anti-slavery petitions, 28 Feb., 6, 10 Mar., and voted in condemnation of the Jamaican slave trials, 2 Mar.;16 criticized the army estimates, 3 Mar., and presented the Shropshire brewers’ petition for a reduction in the duty on malt stocks, 14 Apr.17 He came in unopposed at the general election in June, when the corn bill and the Catholic question, on which he declined to comment, were the major issues.18

He brought up protectionist petitions from Shropshire against altering the corn laws, 26 Feb., and divided against Catholic relief, 6 Mar. 1827.19 His interventions in committee of supply, 27 Mar., justifying his vote against the corn bill, 2 Apr., and his endorsements of the Olney anti-Catholic petition, 2 May, and Lethbridge’s speech on the game laws, 4 May, could not be heard; but, ‘after a long and noisy effort’, he succeeded in taking the president of the board of trade Huskisson to task on a point of order, for using the debate on shipping to vent his spleen against his critics in the Lords, 7 May.20 He joined Huskisson and Lord George Lennox in opposing the Sussex election bill, 9 May, voted for the disfranchisement of Penryn, 28 May, and was in a minority of ten for repeal of the Blasphemous and Seditious Libels Act, 31 May 1827. That autumn he went to the Leeward Islands to see the condition of the slaves and plantations for himself, and so missed the 1828 session.21 Cressett Pelham’s hostility to Catholic emancipation, which he regarded as a violation of the constitution of 1688, was undiminished, and he expressed regret at Peel and Wellington’s ‘change of tack’, 5 Feb., and declared his ‘determination to resist any further concessions’, 9 Feb. 1829. To the acclaim of the Shropshire Brunswickers,22 he presented and endorsed numerous anti-Catholic petitions, defended the right of the lower classes, as church members, to petition and the means by which hostile petitions were obtained, and disputed the merits of religious toleration and the emancipationists’ claims, 9 Feb., 6, 9, 10, 20, 30 Mar. He divided against the relief bill, 6, 18, 30 Mar., and, albeit with reservations, against the Irish franchise bill, 20 Mar., and to prevent Catholics sitting in Parliament, 23 Mar. He voiced support for the French claimants, 4 May, and the distressed wool and tobacco growers, 11 May, 1, 3 June; criticized the delay to the Irish education estimates and the Maynooth grant, 22 May, and declared his ‘decided hostility’ to the ‘principle and details’ of Peel’s metropolitan police bill, 25 May. He voted for Lord Blandford’s parliamentary reform resolutions, 2 June, and called for discussion of the slave trade to be postponed until Parliament could examine it thoroughly, 3 June 1829. During the winter of 1829-30 he was at the forefront of the Shropshire campaign against routing the Holyhead road through Ellesmere, so by-passing Shrewsbury, but illness prevented him from returning to the House before the 1830 dissolution. Apologizing for his absence, he assured the freeholders that his indisposition would ‘not hereafter under Providence recur’.23 His defence of the corporation and Cleveland’s interests at the Shrewsbury election proved unpopular, 30 July 1830, but his return for the county was unopposed. On the hustings he ‘adverted to the national debt, which he said was contracted to defend our dearest rights’ and promised to support ‘all measures of prudence and economy’ which ‘begat confidence in public men’.24

The Wellington administration counted Cressett Pelham among their ‘foes’, but, possibly heeding Cleveland’s adherence to them, he commended the address, 2 Nov., and did not vote on the civil list when they were brought down, 15 Nov. 1830. He presented and endorsed petitions against slavery, 4 Nov., and the coastwise coal duty, 11, 15 Nov., when he defended Members’ right to explain the contents of the petitions they presented and protested at the delay in considering election petitions. He called on the new Grey ministry to take up the slavery question themselves rather than leave it to private Members, 17 Nov. He was against adjourning the House during the ‘Swing’ riots, warmly endorsed Littleton’s truck bill, 13, 14 Dec., and expressed continued support for Sturges Bourne’s select vestries bill, 16 Dec. 1830, and repeal of the coastwise coal duty, 4 Feb. 1831. Sir Thomas Martin, the comptroller of the navy, dismissed his plea for a reduction in the estimates as proof that he knew ‘nothing at all about the subject’, 25 Mar. 1831. Cressett Pelham continued to air his grievances over the constitutional change wrought by Catholic emancipation, 4, 18 Nov., but called for ‘open discussion’ and the speedy consideration of parliamentary reform, 6, 9 Dec. 1830. He did not, as local reformers had hoped, encourage Shropshire to petition for reform;25 and he called for an end to petitioning pending the announcement of the ministerial measure, 6 Feb. 1831. He voted against its second reading, 22 Mar., but in the minority against Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. 1831. A critic remarked:

[Cressett Pelham] has often voted for the lessening of taxes; but with that versatility of judgement peculiar to himself, he has thought proper to oppose reform; an act which I think is hardly atoned for either by those frequent harangues of his, which make such a figure in the debates, or by that perfectly original scheme, which he once proposed, that Parliament should move for change of air from one town to another.26

Denied the support of Cleveland, who had declared for the ministry and the bill, he sought Tory patronage at the ensuing general election and, despite complaints from Sir John Wrottesley* and others about his contrariness, attendance, failure to have his speeches reported and ‘performance of public duties’, he defeated Lloyd and Mytton and was re-elected with the anti-reformer Hill. He boldly defended his conduct, particularly his visit to the West Indies, and vote against the reform bill, and his denunciation of its provision for dividing counties like Shropshire was loudly cheered.27

He voted against the second reading of the reintroduced reform bill, 6 July 1831. He pointedly declined to make common cause with Hunt and its detractors who advocated universal suffrage, 8 July; and before dividing for Gordon’s adjournment motion, 12 July, one of at least five for which he voted that night, he condemned the bill as ‘mischievous, dangerous and unconstitutional’ and the ‘most ill-contrived piece of legislation ever submitted to a British Parliament’, and warned that it would inevitably lead to universal suffrage. He endorsed anti-reform petitions, 13, 14, 15 July, and objected almost daily in committee to the bill’s details and its threat to the constitution. He voted to use the 1831 census to determine English borough disfranchisements, 19 July, and strenuously opposed the disfranchisement of Bishop’s Castle, refuting Lord John Russell’s allegations that it was a corrupt nomination borough, 20 July. He defended the rights of the burgesses of Hedon and Midhurst, 22 July, of New Romney, St. Mawes and Seaford, 26 July, objecting especially to combining the latter with Hastings. Before voting against the partial disfranchisement of Chippenham, 27 July, he asserted that Members should not act solely for their own constituencies, but for the country at large, highlighted the constitutional differences between the American confederacy and the United Kingdom and pointed to the migratory nature of the population in the growing towns, which he conceded deserved to be enfranchised. He objected to taking Members from East Grinstead and Maldon, 29 July, and Sudbury, 2 Aug., and referred to himself as one of the ‘half a dozen Members’ railed at by Grattan on the 4th for ‘taking upon themselves the character of champions of all the boroughs, and repeating night after night the same argument’. He defended their conduct, 4, 5 Aug., and endorsed Charles Williams Wynn’s remarks and praise for the Welsh contributory borough system, 9, 10 Aug., when he also drew attention to anomalies in the treatment of Yorkshire. He vehemently opposed the division of counties, 11 Aug., and cited this as his chief objection to awarding county representation to the Isle of Wight independently of Hampshire, 16 Aug., and the proposal for the rape of Bramber, 2 Sept. He was not listed in the majority for Lord Chandos’s amendment for enfranchising £50 tenants-at-will, 18 Aug., but evidently favoured it. He queried ministers’ definition of such voters, 19 Aug., and defended them as ‘persons of the highest respectability’ when Cumberland petitioned against their enfranchisement, 27 Aug. He supported the abortive amendment to preserve existing voting rights, 27 Aug., criticized the bill’s registration proposals, 3, 6 Sept., and preamble, 7 Sept., and divided against its passage, 21 Sept. He voted against the second reading of the Scottish measure, 23 Sept., and objected to the proposed union of Peeblesshire and Selkirkshire, 4 Oct. He was named as a defaulter and did not vote on Lord Ebrington’s confidence motion, 10 Oct. 1831.

When the Irish government was implicated in corruption at the Dublin election, he had called on the committee chairman Robert Gordon to confirm allegations of treasury interference and failed, by 76-51, with a motion to postpone the new writ, 8 Aug. 1831. He divided for Gordon’s censure motion based on the committee’s report, 23 Aug., and against issuing the Liverpool writ in order to consider the bribery there, 5 Sept. Harrying ministers and delaying the reform bill, he made time-wasting interventions on the navy estimates, 27 June, railway bills, 28 June, 21 July, the customs duties, 1, 11 July, and the Lescene and Escoffery case, 18 Aug. He called for lower duties on malt and tiles, 1 July, 15 Aug., and expressed support for the regulation of child labour in factories, 27 July. He objected to printing the radical Waterford petition for disarming the Irish yeomanry, 1 Aug., and, speaking ‘as a Protestant’, reiterated his objections to the Maynooth grant, 5 Aug., 26 Sept. He acknowledged the evils of absenteeism and said that he supported ‘in principle’ Perceval’s proposal to make Irish county lord lieutenants resident, 6 Oct. He voted against the truck bill, 12 Sept., and to postpone the Windsor Castle and Buckingham House grants, 28 Sept. As he explained in committee on the Sugar Refinery Act, 7 Oct., he saw no dichotomy between his endorsement of anti-slavery petitions, 27 June, and support for the West India lobby’s call for a select committee on the sugar trade, 12 Sept. He complained that the Newfoundland inquiry had been ‘got rid of ... by a side wind’, 13 Sept. 1831.

Cressett Pelham opposed the revised reform bill on constitutional grounds and voted against its second reading, 17 Dec. 1831. Urging further postponement for modification, on 20 Jan. 1832 he voted against proceeding with it in committee, where his idiosyncratic and almost daily criticisms of its minutiae contributed, almost inadvertently, to the opposition’s delaying tactics. Defending their conduct, 2 Feb., he denied that ‘any unnecessary delay has been offered to the bill’, which he insisted was ‘intended to serve the purposes of persons out of doors’. He again criticized the division of counties, 27 Jan., 10 Mar., and provisions for voter registration and polling, 24 Jan., 8, 10, Feb., and argued that the creation of £10 voters would increase corruption, 7 Feb. He voted against enfranchising Tower Hamlets, 28 Feb., and suggested that day that Southwark should have been attached to the City and Salford to Manchester and that the boundaries of Bishop’s Castle should have been adjusted to enable it to retain its franchise. He expressed unrepentant opposition to the bill before voting against its third reading, 22 Mar. When, during the days of May, the City petitioned for withholding supplies until the bill was passed, 10 May, he spoke highly of the corporation and protested at the impending degradation of the constituency by the infusion of ‘a set of vagabond £10 voters’. He persisted, almost to the last, in voicing his opposition to the Scottish and Irish measures, 1 June, 2, 6 July, and voted to preserve Irish freemen’s voting rights, 2 July. He had endorsed the call for information on Holland and Belgium, 6 Aug. 1831, and divided against administration on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., 12 July, but stated on 7 Aug. 1832 that in view of existing treaty arrangements and his preference for settling domestic concerns he would divide with them on Russia and Poland. When party strength was tested on relations with Portugal, on which apparently he did not vote, 9 Feb. 1832, he maintained that the true issues at stake were the breaches of the Foreign Enlistment Act involved and ‘improper partiality’ shown by ministers.

Cressett Pelham, fixed in his determination to intervene on all issues, opposed the Buckingham House expenditure, 17 Jan., 29 Feb., and seconded Trench’s abortive motion for details of the cost of refurbishing St. James’s Palace as an alternative, 27 Mar. 1832. Opposing the anatomy bill as a minority teller, 17 Jan., he suggested punishing the buyers and sellers of bodies and claimed that wars afforded ample opportunity for studying corpses; he voted against the bill’s recommittal, 27 Feb. He argued against rushing through the general register bill, 19 Jan. He remained convinced that Irish Catholics should have no control over church revenues, 24 Jan., 8, 14 Feb., and repeated his objections to the Maynooth grant, 23 June, 27 July. He voiced qualified support for the factory bill, 9 Feb., and voted against the malt drawback bill, 29 Feb. Among his several interventions on finance, he objected to the grants for a national gallery and record office, as ‘the best way to expand the mind is for young men to go and contemplate the arts in Greece and Italy’, 23 July, and he opposed public expenditure on book purchases for Aberdeen University, 28 July. Drawing on his experience of Sussex, he pointed to the futility of legislating against smuggling, 25 July. He supported the notion of ‘a general system of sewerage’ in London to improve public health, 31 July, and welcomed a concession permitting naval chaplains on half-pay to hold church livings, 8 Aug. He protested that the stagecoach bill would never have been passed had more country gentlemen been obliged to stay in town until the end of the session, 10 Aug. 1832.

He welcomed the proposed grant for Barbados, 29 Feb., and voted in Buxton’s minority for the immediate appointment of a select committee on colonial slavery, 24 May 1832, but stated that he considered Buxton’s speech ‘diametrically opposed to its object’ and the slaves as yet intellectually unprepared to assume the same functions in the state as Europeans:

I am inclined to believe that the laws, for the management of the lower orders in the West Indies, are not much more severe than those for the lower orders here. As to Jamaica, I know nothing about that; but I am acquainted with many of the Leeward Islands, and certainly am not disposed to give credence to the exaggerated statements that are made in this country about them. On one of those islands I went with the temporary governor to a Dissenting meeting, at which there appeared to be every mark of devotion. We cannot read the minds of men, but I know it appeared to me that there were more Christians among these blacks than in this metropolis. Above all, I trust that no measure will be adopted so as to lay this House under a restriction.

He was for appointing a select committee to consider emigration to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s land, 7 June, and divided against going into committee on the government’s bill to provide relief from local taxation in the West Indian crown colonies, 3 Aug. He seconded Perceval’s motion alleging breach of privilege against the printer Lawson, 31 Jan., by which Hume was prompted to admit responsibility for publicizing details of proceedings after the House had been cleared on the 26th. He deplored the leniency shown to the attorney Wright, 7 May, and the disclosure of evidence submitted to the select committee on Irish tithes, 1 June, and expressed support in principle for adhering to the practice of stamping government publications, 24 June. Criticizing Spring Rice’s proposals for regulating franking, 26 July, he argued that post office revenues would increase if free franking was abolished and said he had never used a Member’s privilege of giving franks. He proposed transferring to the state all ‘fees and extra emoluments accruing in the office of clerk of the patents and register of affidavits in the court of chancery’, 30 June, but the chancellor Lord Althorp pointed out that the public would gain little thereby and his motion was negatived without a division. He voted against Hume’s ‘tardy’ proposal to disqualify the recorder of Dublin from sitting in Parliament, 24 July, and had little time for the petition of complaint about Nottingham gaol, 1 Aug., or Hume’s arguments against compensating Sir Abraham Bradley King, 3 Aug. 1832. Evaluating him, the Spectator observed:

Cressett Pelham is noted for his eccentricity, to make use of a very mild word to describe his strange conduct in public and private life. The Shropshire farmers say he is not accountable, the reporters ... say he is incomprehensible, men of business say he is impracticable. We say that it is disgraceful and contemptible conduct in the electorate of such a great and wealthy county to chose such a man to represent them ... But Mr. Pelham not infrequently does very kind actions, and occasionally, like all other odd fellows, makes shrewd remarks. He is besides, the master of his own estate, has no family and can live on £50 per annum and declares he will rather be reduced to extremity than driven from his seat.28

Notwithstanding the complaints of Whigs and squib writers, his return for the Conservative stronghold of South Shropshire in December 1832 seemed assured.29 His announcement on 3 Nov. that he was standing down to contest Shrewsbury, where the recent transfer of the Conservative interest to Sir John Hanmer† left him no hope of success, was interpreted as further evidence of his eccentricity, abhorrence of divided counties and love of a challenge, and facilitated the return for Shropshire of Cleveland’s heir, the Conservative Lord Darlington.30 Undeterred by his defeat, Cressett Pelham campaigned against corporation and church reform and the 1834 poor law and contested Shrewsbury successfully in 1835, only to lose again in 1837.31 That autumn he sailed from Liverpool for Mauritius, where he died intestate on board the Nerbudda, off Port Louis, in August 1838. Reports of his death reached England in January 1839 and were confirmed following an appeal for his next of kin to come forward.32 Administration of his estate, which was valued at £9,000, was granted to his sisters Frances Thursby and Anne Papillon, 18 Apr. 1839.33 On the death in 1852 of Frances, who commemorated him with a plaque in Cound church, the Shropshire estate passed to her son, the Rev. Henry Thursby (d. 1878), who took the name of Pelham. He had married his first cousin Mary Elizabeth Papillon, whose family acquired Crowhurst Place.34

Ref Volumes: 1820-1832

Author: Margaret Escott

Notes

• 1. HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 529-30; Nimrod, Hunting Reminiscences (1826), 10.
• 2. E. Edwards, Parl. Elections of Shrewsbury, 20-21; Salop Archives, Weld-Forester mss 1224, box 337, Procs. at Wenlock election.
• 3. Shrewsbury Chron. 12 Jan. 1821, 22, 29 Mar. 1822; Salopian Jnl. 17 Jan. 1821.
• 4. NLW, Aston Hall mss C.991; C.1015.
• 5. Ibid. C.1087; Salop Archives, Morris-Eyton mss 6003/3, Slaney jnl. 5, 13-15 Nov.; Salop Archives 81/3; Staffs. RO, Weston Park mss D.1287/10/4a, Childe to Lord Forester and reply [Nov.]; Shrewsbury Chron. 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 Nov.; The Times, 18, 19, 25 Nov., 2 Dec.; Add. 51663, Bedford to Holland, 21 Nov.; Salopian Jnl. 4 Dec. 1822.
• 6. Aston Hall mss C.1111.
• 7. The Times, 22 Apr. 1825.
• 8. Ibid. 7 Apr. 1824.
• 9. Add. 51663, [? Brougham] to Holland, 21 Nov. 1822; The Times, 12 Feb. 1825.
• 10. The Times, 18 Mar. 1823.
• 11. Ibid. 16 Mar., 4, 7, 8 May 1824.
• 12. Ibid. 15 Apr., 4, 13 May 1824.
• 13. Ibid. 6 Apr., 28 May, 15 June; Salop Archives, Corbett of Longnor mss 1066/133, diary of Katherine Plymley, 20 June 1824.
• 14. The Times, 23 Feb., 2 Mar., 22, 29 Apr., 7, 31 May, 10 June 1825.
• 15. Ibid. 23 Apr., 3 May 1825; CJ, lxxx. 363.
• 16. The Times, 1, 7, 10 Mar. 1826.
• 17. Ibid. 4 Mar., 14, 15 Apr. 1826.
• 18. Plymley diary 137, 22 June; Shrewsbury Chron. 23 June 1826.
• 19. The Times, 27 Feb. 1827.
• 20. Ibid. 3 Apr., 3 May 1827.
• 21. Salopian Jnl. 11 May; Shrewsbury Chron. 13 May 1831.
• 22. Salopian Jnl. 11, 18 Feb., 11 Mar., 29 Apr., 6 May 1829.
• 23. Ibid. 6, 13 Jan., 28 July 1830.
• 24. Ibid. 4, 11 Aug.; Shrewsbury Chron. 6, 13 Aug. 1830; Salop Archives 6001/3059, pp. 23-24.
• 25. Aston Hall mss C.1097.
• 26. Shrewsbury Chron. 29 Apr. 1831.
• 27. Aston Hall mss C.5326-9; Salopian Jnl. 27 Apr., 4, 11, 18 May, 22 June; Shrewsbury Chron. 29 Apr., 13, 20, 27 May, 3, 10 June 1831; Nimrod, Mems. John Mytton (1915), 71-77; Salop Archives D45/1170/22a.
• 28. Spectator, 20 Oct. 1832.
• 29. Shrewsbury Chron. 15 June, 6 July 1832; Aston Hall mss C.1018; Corresp. of Charles Darwin ed. F. Burkhardt and S. Smith, i. 254.
• 30. NLW, Coedymaen mss 230; Salopian Jnl. 7 Nov., 19, 26 Dec. 1832.
• 31. VCH Salop, iii. 325-6; Salopian Jnl. 7 Jan. 1835, 12 July 1837; Darwin Corresp. i. 429; J. Phillips, Great Reform Bill in the Boroughs, 142, 151-5.
• 32. Salopian Jnl. 9 Jan., 24 Apr.; The Times, 12 Jan., 29 Apr.; Gent. Mag.(1839), i. 661.
• 33. PROB 6/215/154; VCH Suss. ix. 80.
• 34. VCH Salop, iii. 31; viii. 63-65.