Upon leaving office Prime Ministers have long sought to reward their most important advisers in what has become known as a “resignation honours list”. The first to do so formally was Lord Rosebery in 1895, but eighteenth-century Prime Ministers were no different. After serving in government for decades Thomas Pelham-Holles, duke of Newcastle, had a number of obligations towards his closest advisers and family members, as he sought to provide for their future well-being.

When Newcastle resigned on 11 Nov. 1756, to facilitate the formation of the administration of the 4th duke of Devonshire and William Pitt, rumours surfaced in the press that he had retired with a pension of £6,000 per annum. To counteract these, Newcastle had several notices inserted in newspapers denying that he had asked or received any grant of place or pension for himself. In this Newcastle was being politically astute for he wished to avoid obligations for the future; as he had written to his friend the earl of Hardwicke on 2 November, ‘I would ask nothing that would not leave us free hereafter.’ [BL, Add. 32836, f. 540]

If Newcastle chose not to take anything for himself, he was eager to assist some of his followers. Henry Fox, who had just resigned as secretary of state, noted on 13 November that Newcastle had ‘got his dukedom entailed on Lord Lincoln, and four reversions of great value granted to Shelley, Pelham, Jones and West and has made Sir G. Lyttelton a peer.’ [Campbell, Correspondence,221-2]. By the end of the month, Horace Walpole was able to scoff at Newcastle’s selflessness:

here is a list of his disinterestedness. The reversion of his dukedom for Lord Lincoln: this is the only duchy bestowed by the present King: … Mr. Shelley, the Duke’s nephew, has the reversion of Arundel’s place. Mr. West has a great reversion for himself and his son: your little waxen friend, Tommy Pelham, has another reversion in the Customs. Jones, the Duke’s favourite secretary, and nephew of the late Chancellor, has another. Not to mention the English barony for Sir George Lyttelton, and the Irish earldom for Mr. O’Brien

Walpole Correspondence, xxi. 26

Let us examine this veritable catalogue of honours in more detail.

Most important for Newcastle was the grant of a new dukedom of Newcastle under Lyne. Without heirs, Newcastle’s existing dukedom of Newcastle upon Tyne would die with him. This new grant was entailed upon his nephew and heir the earl of Lincoln (son of his sister Katherine, who had married the eldest daughter of his brother Henry Pelham). The origin of the title seems to have come from Lincoln, who suggested it in case there was a problem with re-using Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Another nephew, John Shelley, son of Newcastle’s sister, Margaret Pelham, who had married Sir John Shelley, 4th bt, was given the reversion to the clerkship of the pipe, to which he succeeded in 1758. Shelley had been brought into the Commons for East Retford in 1751 and had designs on marrying his cousin, Mary, daughter of Henry Pelham. In spite of being picked out by Newcastle, he did not remain loyal when the duke found himself in opposition, becoming a devotee of William Pitt and even acquiring the nickname ‘the little commoner’ because of the way he ‘aped’ Pitt (known as the ‘Great Commoner).

Newcastle’s secretary, James West, Member for St. Albans, who had been a long-time servant of both Newcastle and Henry Pelham, received the reversion of the auditorship of the land revenues for himself and his son. The son inherited the post in 1775, retaining it until his death in 1795.

Newcastle’s cousin, from the Stanmer branch of the family, Thomas Pelham, Member for Sussex (already a commissioner of trade) was given the reversion of the surveyor-generalship of the customs of London, which fell to him in 1773, and which he retained until his death in 1808. Upon Newcastle’s death in 1768 he inherited the Pelhams’ estates in Sussex and the Pelham barony. He was created earl of Chichester in 1805.

Another secretary, Hugh Valence Jones, MP for Dover, served faithfully as Newcastle’s amanuensis, got a reversion to the comptrollership of the customs, which he held from 1780-1800. His mother was the sister of Newcastle’s greatest ally, the long serving Lord Chancellor, Hardwicke.

Sir George Lyttelton, 5th bt, MP for Okehampton, one of the original ‘Cobham’s Cubs’ had not followed Pitt into opposition and had served as Newcastle’s Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1755-6. According to Horace Walpole, his ‘warmest prayer was to go to heaven in a coronet’, and he was created Baron Lyttelton of Frankly on 18 November 1756.

Percy Wyndham O’Brien, MP for Cockermouth, was also a treasury lord under Newcastle in 1755-6. He received an Irish peerage as earl of Thomond in December 1756, but this may have owed more to the initiative of the duke of Devonshire, who offered him the peerage, than to Newcastle. He continued to sit in the Commons until his death in 1774.

Newcastle had lived up to his reputation for administrative effectiveness. All his recipients (or their families) were thus well rewarded in his “resignation honours list”.

SNH

Further reading:

R. Browning, The Duke of Newcastle (1975)

Correspondence of John Campbell MP, with his family, Henry Fox, Sir Robert Walpole and the Duke of Newcastle, 1734-1771, ed. J.E. Davies, Parliamentary History Texts and Studies, 8 (2013).

J.C.D. Clark, The Dynamics of Change: the crisis of the 1750s and the English party system (1982)

L. Namier and J. Brooke, History of Parliament: the Commons 1754-1790

Between 5 and 7 July 2022, over 60 members of Boris Johnson’s government resigned, the highest number of resignations in a limited period in British political history. Few 18th-century governments saw as many departures, but many of the period’s administrations were formed following concerted ministerial resignations. Those resigning in 2022 aimed to topple their own prime minister and bring about a new government. Under the Georgians, it was usually the prime minister himself, and leading ministers, who resigned in order to force the king to choose between equally unpalatable ministers, often against his will.

George II in particular had strong opinions about his ministers. He preferred John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville, a German-speaker advocate of a pro-Hanoverian policy. However, the king had been forced to agree to Granville’s departure as secretary of state in November 1744 after receiving what was in effect an ultimatum from Henry Pelham, first lord of the Treasury and effectively prime minister, and his elder brother, Thomas Pelham Holles, duke of Newcastle, the other secretary of state.

The king nevertheless continued to take advice from Granville who, against the wishes of the Pelhams, dissuaded George from taking the incendiary anti-Hanover orator, William Pitt the Elder, into government. The Pelhams, fearing that they too would be dismissed, engaged in a game of brinkmanship with the king. On 10 February 1746 they and the leading ministers in the government all resigned, followed by several more junior ministers, ‘down to the lowest clerks’. ‘The whole nation, which for four years had seemed possessed with a madness of seizing places, now ran into the opposite frenzy of quitting them’. [Horace Walpole, Memoirs of George II, i. 171-2] In the space of a few days in February 1746, somewhere in the region of 45 government ministers resigned, dismantling the government while the country was still threatened by the Jacobite rebels.

At first, George II turned to Granville and William Pulteney, earl of Bath, to form a new ministry. Over two days they struggled to form a government but got no further than choosing four ministers (including themselves). On the third day of this ‘meteor-like ministry’, with ‘no volunteers coming in’, Bath and Granville conceded defeat. The victorious Pelhamites laid further strict conditions on the king as they returned to office. Pitt was brought into the government, but as paymaster general rather that secretary at war. They also insisted that the king could only work with his official ministers and should discard non-ministerial advisers.

Ten years later George II was again forced to accept ministers he disliked. Henry Pelham died in March 1754 and was replaced by his brother Newcastle as first lord of the Treasury. Britain’s renewed war with France in 1755-6 started badly, culminating in the humiliating loss of Minorca in 1756. As a hostile parliamentary session approached in the autumn of 1756, Henry Fox, the government’s leader of the Commons, felt unsupported by Newcastle. In order to shore up his position, Fox tendered his resignation just before the session was set to commence. This time the ploy did not work. The king accepted Fox’s resignation and then turned reluctantly to Newcastle to form a ministry that would incorporate Pitt instead. ‘The Great Commoner’, though, refused to serve with Newcastle, prompting Newcastle in turn to tender his resignation. This time, apart from his friend the lord chancellor Philip Yorke, earl of Hardwicke, Newcastle could not persuade any more of his colleagues to resign with him. Eventually in early November William Cavendish, 4th duke of Devonshire, agreed to head a new government, with Pitt as secretary of state.

The way seemed clear, however, for Newcastle’s quick return to office as Pitt found it difficult to work with Devonshire’s cadre of loyal Whigs in the Commons. Most of all the king remained hostile towards Pitt and dismissed him from office in early April 1757. This time it took much longer to from a new administration. Fox tried first but, following his failure, over the summer a number of emissaries, most often Hardwicke, tried to negotiate with all the mutually antagonistic parties.

Eventually the king turned to James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave. Like the previous Bath-Granville government, Waldegrave’s was short-lived – only four days – before Newcastle threw in his trump card. Either independently or at Newcastle’s request, Robert Darcy, 4th earl of Holdernesse, secretary of state for the northern department, resigned. Significantly, Holdernesse tendered his resignation on 9 June, the day after Waldegrave was tasked with forming his ministry. Newcastle denied to Waldegrave that he had had any influence in Holdernesse’s departure, but at the same time seemed to threaten Waldegrave that ‘with a single Word, he could cause so many Resignations, as would give the Court a very empty appearance’. [Waldegrave, Memoirs, 203] Waldegrave also suspected that Newcastle was working behind his back, dissuading others from taking up the posts he offered them in his government.

Faced with a diminishing pool of candidates from which to fill places, Waldegrave gave up and the king was again forced to turn to Newcastle to build a working administration. It took several more weeks before Pitt and Newcastle, with Hardwicke acting as intermediary, could reach a modus vivendi. The new ministry was not confirmed until early July 1757, three months after Pitt’s dismissal, which had started the crisis of the ‘interministerium’ as Walpole dubbed it. Newcastle had ‘forced’ his way into office again, and brought with him Pitt, by his skilful use of the well-timed resignation.

From such inauspicious beginnings emerged the ministry of 1757-61, which is now considered one of the more successful among British governments. It oversaw Britain’s victory in the Seven Years War, which established the foundations for the first British empire in North America, and provided the basis for Britain’s global ambitions and conduct for decades to come.

CGDL

Further Reading:

Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II, 3 vols., ed. Lord Holland (1847)
The memoirs & speeches of James, 2nd Earl Waldegrave 1742-1763, ed. J.C.D. Clark (1988)
Life and Correspondence of Philip Yorke, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, 3 vols, ed. Philip C. Yorke (1913)

On 17 June 1747 George II attended the House of Lords to grant his assent to some 59 new pieces of legislation. Having done so, he made a brief speech thanking both Houses for their service before leaving it to the Lord Chancellor (Philip Yorke, Lord Hardwicke) to prorogue the session. The next day, Parliament was dissolved. The decision to bring about an early termination was supposed to have been a secret, but as the duke of Richmond revealed to the duke of Newcastle earlier in the month, it was one everyone knew about: ‘I beg to know when the dissolution of the Parliament is no longer a secret, for every soul I meet with has it, & I look like a fool when I lye [sic], which I am not used to…’ [Richmond -Newcastle Correspondence, 246]. Like many peers in the period, Richmond was eager to play his part in the ensuing elections in a variety of constituencies where he was able to command interest.

Under the terms of the Septennial Act, the Parliament, elected in the summer of 1741, ought to have had another year to run, but the early dissolution had been resolved on, according to Dudley Ryder, ‘to disappoint the Prince [of Wales], who is beginning to intermeddle in most of the boroughs against the next Parliament in order to set up a violent opposition.’ The Westminster Journal of 6 June had a different take on it, suggesting that ‘the Reasons given for the sudden Dissolution of this Parliament, are of the utmost Weight for the Safety and Tranquillity of the kingdom, in order to prevent the pernicious intrigues of France at this critical juncture’.  Both were plausible reasons for the ministry to wish to go to the country early. Britain’s involvement in the War of the Austrian Succession had resulted in gains in America, but the country had been invaded by Jacobite forces backed by a resurgent France in 1745 and only days before the 1747 poll the army under the duke of Cumberland suffered a significant defeat at Lauffeldt. The beginning of peace negotiations the previous year had been widely criticized. A desire to strengthen the ministry’s hand in the pourparlers that would ultimately result in the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) was undoubtedly a signal reason for wanting to get the election out of the way early.

As Ryder suggested, though, the ministry was also eager to counter the substantial effort being made by Frederick and his allies to build up an opposition movement founded on a coalition of dissident Whigs, Tories and the prince’s own household retainers. Newcastle and his brother, Henry Pelham (the prime minister) had every reason to be wary of Prince Frederick’s new alliance. It had been, after all, just such a grouping that had played a significant role in destabilizing and ultimately toppling Sir Robert Walpole early in 1742. In the early months of 1747 the prince had announced his intention of returning to opposition for as long as he remained Prince of Wales and on 4 June his movement released their non-partisan programme in the Carlton House Declaration. Heading the opposition, it should be stressed, was not something he expected to be confined to for much longer. George II was by now into his 60s and as the king’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather had all failed to make it past 70, there was every reason to expect Prince Frederick’s accession as king to be only a few years away. In the event, this was to be Frederick’s last general election at the head of the opposition, but only because it was to be him rather than his father who would die first.

By the early months of 1747 Frederick’s grouping had begun to make detailed preparations for the election they anticipated to be still 18 months away. Then, as now, the west country was considered a key battleground. There the prince expected to be able to draw on the resources of the duchy of Cornwall. In Scotland, it was hoped that Frederick’s ally, the duke of Argyll, would capitalize on gains made in 1741, and there were other areas of the country, including in the Pelhams’ own heartlands of Sussex, where the opposition aimed to mount a significant effort. In each of these the prince and his lieutenants had begun to lay the groundwork for the next election, but the ministry’s decision to bring the poll forward meant that few seats were adequately prepared for the contest.

The government commenced its campaign, quietly confident of success, but cautious about overstating their strength: ‘We despise the Opposition extreamly. I hope we are not mistaken’. [Richmond-Newcastle Correspondence, 247] The opposition, meanwhile, struggled to rally their unprepared forces. In the west Frederick was hobbled by the loss to the ministry’s ranks of Hugh Boscawen, 2nd Viscount Falmouth, who was able to bring to bear considerable electoral interest in a number of Cornish constituencies from his seat at Tregothnan. According to one of Frederick’s backers at Truro, one of the places where the Boscawens were particularly strong, ‘The majority of the electors here are so attached to the Tregothnan family… that the attempt you advise me to make in this place would I am persuaded, prove fruitless…’ [HMC Fortescue, i. 109] The sheer cost of attempting to ‘buy support’ (technically, of course, a crime even then) was also a problem for the prince’s grouping. The always outspoken Thomas Pitt, for whom the words ‘villain’ and ‘rascal’ were staples of his personal lexicon, expostulated on the state of affairs in Grampound:

I think we can carry it, but it must cost damnably dear. The villains had got a-head to that degree, and rise in their demands so extravagantly, that I have been very near damning them and kicking them to the devil at once. The dirty rascals dispise [sic] 20 guineas as much as a King’s Sergeant does a half guinea fee… [HMC Fortescue, i. 111]

Horace Walpole, who reported a rumour that Frederick had put aside £200,000 to fight the election, considered the money ill-spent, commenting cynically that ‘he had much better have saved it to buy the parliament after it is chosen’. [Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. C.B Lucas, 66]. He may have had a point. The election at Grampound resulted in a compromise with Thomas Hawkins securing one seat in the prince’s interest (with Pitt’s grudging support), while the other went to the ministry supporter, Lord George Bentinck. Elsewhere, the ministry demonstrated supremely assured management. At Seaford, where Newcastle held sway, the duke even sat at the returning officer’s desk to ensure that his preferred candidates were elected. Unsurprisingly, both seats went to his nominees and a subsequent petition complaining against Newcastle’s behaviour was thrown out in the Commons.

The overall result, albeit of an election that saw only 62 contests across the country, was a decisive victory for the government. Some 351 seats went to candidates in the ministry’s interest, with just 92 going to dissident Whigs and 115 to Tories. By the second week of July the opposition had descended into mutual recrimination and the launching of an investigation into how they had failed to carry the seats of which they had had such high hopes. The prince, meanwhile, whose personal grouping had been particularly badly mauled, attempted to play down the size of his defeat and to comfort his supporters. One seat at Grampound, he insisted, was more than he had hoped for; and as Francis Ayscough put it to the inconsolable Thomas Pitt:

Thank God, we have a master who values his friends and servants, not according to their success, but to their zeal and sincerity in his service; and, as no one can have shown more of this than you have done in the late troubles and fatigues you have undergone, so no one can be more in his favour and esteem. [HMC Fortescue, i. 121]

RDEE

Further Reading:

• The Correspondence of the dukes of Richmond and Newcastle 1724-1750, ed. T. McCann (Sussex Record Society lxxiii, 1984)
• Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783 (Oxford, 1989)
• Reed Browning, The Duke of Newcastle (Yale, 1975)