The Third Earl Spencer and 1818-1845
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The Third Earl Spencer and Agriculture, 1818-1845 By E. A. WASSON CENTUR¥ has passed since the publica- gatherings of farmers; and who was a promoter tion of Sir Denis Le Marchant's bio- and sometimes the principal instigator of A graphy of the third Earl Spencer. It has almost every important scheme for agricul- been eighty-five years since the appearance of tural improvement put forward in the I83O'S Ernest Clarke's article in the .Journal of the and I84O'S. Koyal Agricultural Society which contains the It is the purpose of this article to establish the only other evaluation of Spencer as an agricul- nature of Spencer's involvement in agricul- turalist. 1 In the interval not only have historians tural affairs. There is always the danger in the drastically revised their opinions about agricul- study of a single individual tllat file general tural history but also a mass of new docu- picture will be distorted and that larger fllemes mentary evidence has become available. Fur- will become lost in the thicket of personal thermore, in the last few decades pioneering details. However, concrete examples of aristo- studies have been made of the role of landed cratic participation in agricultural develop- magnates in the nineteenth-century economy, ment and organization are necessary building and revisionists have altered our views on the blocks for creating a broader interpretation of contributions made by men such as Coke of the magnates' role in the management of Norfolk to agricultural advancement. nineteenth-century English society, and they In the case of Lord Spencer, there have been are still a rare commodity. Spencer, because of neither new studies nor criticisms of old his extraordinary position of leadership, de- opinions. Sir James Scott Watson in his cen- serves special attention. tenary history of the R.oyal Agricultural Society neglected Spencer, and provided in- I accurate information about him.-° Today the John Cha,rles Spencer, Viscount Althorp (1782- usual conception of Lord Althorp, the name 1845), was a member of the innermost core of by which he is usually remembered, is that of a the "grand Whigge,ry." He gradually assumed bucolic squire placed in political positions a commanding position in the Whig party above his abilities. His farming career is rarely during the 182o's and became Chancellor of the given more than a mention. Such a reputation Exchequer and Leader of the House of Com- is difficult to reconcile with the work of a man mons in Lord Grey's ministry (I83O-4)A The who was called by contemporaries "the great successfulpassage of the Great tkeform Act was patron of English Agriculture" ;3 who was in- due to a considerable extent to his leadership. variably accorded rapturous ovations by Many of his plans for advanced financial re- E. Clarke and Sir Harry Verney, 'The Third Earl forms, blocked by the prejudices of his own Spencer', J.R.A.S.E., 3rd ser., I, 189o, pp. 138-56. I would like to acknowledge here the gratitude I feel to- party and the press of other business, antici- wards Professor David Spring of the j'ohns Hopkins pated the work accomplished by Sir P,.obert University and the late Dr George Kitson Clark of Trinity College, Cambridge, for their supervisory advice 4 See Le Marchant, Memoir offfohn Charles Viscount and wisdom. I also wish to thank Mr James MacGuire of Althorp, I876; Ernest Myers, Lord Althorp, I89o; the Downing College, Cambridge, for making some valuable seventh Earl Spencer, 'John Charles, Viscount Althorp, corrections to this paper. third Earl Spencer', Quarterly Rev., vol. z83, 1945, PP. 2 j. A. Scott Watson, Tire History of the Royal Agricul- 468-80; Lord John Russell, 'Earls Grey and Spencer', tural Society of England, z839"-zg39, I939i pp. I-I7. The Edinburgh Rev., gxxxm, x846, pp. 24o--73 ; Michael a British Farmer's Magazine, wI, Oct. I843, p. 298. Brock, The Great Reform Act, 1973. 89 9o THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW Peel a decade later. Althorp was closely in- Soon after Lady Althorp's death, the now volved with the drafting aid passage of the ex-master of foxhounds told his tither that the New Poor Law, the first Factory Act, the only interest from which he could take pleasure Municipal R.eform Act, and the final abolition was in "my cattle and looking at my farm, and of slavery. In spite of the fact that he stood left I hope by such quiet pursuits as fllese to bear the !i: of centre in the Whig party (he supported the affliction I am suffering under with tolerable secret ballot and universal household suffrage), patience. ''8 Althorp had shown some enthusi- ! he was the popular choice as Grey's successor to asm for husbandry before z 818. At Harrow lie ,! !i- the premiership in 1834--an office which his loved to read about natural history, and raised extreme diffidence and overly refined sense of silkworms. On journeys he took note of the l! honour made him decline. In file country he different soils observed in passing? In I814 he was known by the sobriquet "Honest Jack," lie had taken over file management of his wife's and established a reputation for integrity and estate at Wiseton, near Bawtry on the York- i,i ,i !: popularity rivalled by few of his contempor- shire-Nottinghamshire border, which encom- aries. He remained a senior statesman of the passed about 2,ooo acres. At the same time he i: Liberal party whose advice was sought by also became a tenant fa'mer of his father in Melbom'ne, Russell, and others long after his Northamptonshire, where he managed the departure from office. large Chapel Brampton tirnx near Alfliorp %!, Althorp's career as an agriculturalist began Park. 1° He informed Lord Spencer that lie was almost by accident. In I8~8, after giving birfll studying Arthur Young "to make myself a to a still-born boy aid suffering prolonged theorist in farming. ''11 agony, his wife of but four years died. This Most of his time had been occupied by poli- double blow changed the course of his life. He tics and file chase. The situation changed, how- stayed shut up and alone for several months in ever, when three months after Lady Alfllorp's a state of severe depression. He wore mourning death he travelled north to Darlington to attend dress for the rest of his life and, as a penance, the sale of shorthorn cattle bred by Kobert gave up his favourite pastime of fox-hunting. 5 Colling. There Alfllorp spent the large aniount Althorp had become Master of the Pytchley of £9o0 on three cows and a bull, with the in- in 18o8 at the age of twenty-six, and had raised teution of founding his own herd. "In conse- it, as one famous sporting writer observed, to quence of this," he wrote to his close friend, "flxe zenith of its glory. ''6 On taking over the Viscount Milton, "I am enabled again to management of the kennels, Althorp had de- build castles in the air, and if the speculation i L voted much of his time to the task of breeding turns out unprofitable in a pecuniary point of [, smaller boned and swifter hounds. 7 Thus from view, I am quite sure it will repay me in happi- an early age he was an avid student of new HESS."12 !i breeding te&niques, and this kaxowledge mid s Althorp MSS.: Althorp to Ld. Spencer, 29 June i!: experience became useful when the disaster in 1818: kept at Althorp, Northants., and used by kind per- ii: mission of the Rt Hon. the Earl Spencer: Le Marchant, I his personal life propelled him into the breeding op. cit., pp. I69-7o. i. ii" of livestock. 0 Althorp MSS.: Althorp to Georglana, Cts. Spencer, :¢ 9 Sept. I799. 5Northants. R.O., Fitzwilliam MSS.: Althorp to 10 The two farms each produced about £4,000 p.a. in Viscount Milton, io, I5 June 1818, and Lavinia, Cts. gross receipts during the za2o's: Ibld., Althorp to Lady Spencer to Milton, 5 Aug. I818; B.M. Add. MSS. 51584, Althorp, 23 June I814. G. Tiemcy to Lord Holland, 23 Sept. I818. n dbid., Althorp to Ld. Spencer, 9 Oct. 1814. The only 6 The Druid (H. H. Dixon), Silk andScarlet, 1895, p. 73. recorded meeting between Althorp and Young took place Guy Paget, The History of the Althorp and Pytchley in 1798 when the former was sixteen years old: M. Hunt, 1634-19.oo, I937, pp. iii, 279-83; Mrs Hugh Bentham-Edwards, ed., The Autobiography of Arthur Wyndham, ed., Letters from Sarah Spencer, Lady Lyttel- Young, I898. ton, 1787-187o, I912, pp. 62 ft.; Earl Bathurst, The Earl u Fitzw.;lliam MSS. XI6o6, Althorp to Milton, 3 Oct. ii Speneer's and Mr John Warde's Hounds, 1739-1825, I818; Althorp MSS.: Althorp to Ld. Spencer, 3 Oct. Cirencester, 1931. I818. THIRD EARL SPENCER 91 The tolling brothers had chosen the short- he ran Wiseton as if it were an experimental horn instead of Bakewell's longhorn to im- research station rather tl~an for profit3 s His prove upon, and they succeeded in refining bulls were always in demand, his frequent sales their breed into lighter-boned, quicker-fatten- popular, and after his death tile zoo animals re- ing cattle whi& matured earlier and had a high- maining at Wiseton were sold for £io,ooo. 19 er proportion of carcass to live weight tllan Visitors flocked to his farm from home and had been achieved previously3 a The Ceilings' abroad.