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Up for sale the "2nd Earl Fortescue" Hugh Fortescue Hand Signed Free Frank Dated 1837.
ES-906
Hugh
Fortescue, 2nd Earl Fortescue KG, PC (13
February 1783 – 14 September 1861), styled Viscount Ebrington from
1789 to 1841, was a British Whig politician.
He served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from
1839 to 1841. Fortescue was the eldest son of Hugh Fortescue, 1st Earl
Fortescue, and Hester Grenville, daughter of Prime Minister George Grenville. He was educated at Eton and Brasenose College, Oxford.
Fortescue (as Ebrington) first became an MP for Barnstaple,
just after his 21st birthday; and he sat for various constituencies almost
continuously until 1839, when he was summoned to the House of Lords through a writ of acceleration in
his father's junior title of Baron Fortescue. Ebrington had entered Parliament
in the 1800s as a Grenvillite connection, belonging to
that section of the Whig
party that supported the war with Napoleon; but in the following decade (in a generational
shift) he broke away from them to join the Young Whigs. Fearing
the corruptive effects of militarism on British society, the latter
sympathised with the liberalising side of the French Revolution: Ebrington would later publish his
conversations with Napoleon in his Elba exile.
After the war, in 1817, Ebrington confirmed his breach with the bulk of
his Grenville relatives, and emerged as a prominent pro-Reform
Whig—albeit one somewhat unusually rooted in a liberal, morally intense
Anglicanism,—which he combined with an interest in political
economy. Ebrington strongly condemned the Six Acts as ”the most alarming attack ever made by
Parliament upon the liberties and constitution of the country” and during
the 1820s, he would repeatedly promote and vote for Parliamentary Reform.
When the Whigs finally came to power in 1830, Ebrington played a
significant part in the passing of the Great Reform Act. After the Commons passed the second bill,
Ebrington convened a meeting of 100 reformist Whigs, urging strong measures
should the Lords reject it, and acting as leader of a pressure group lobbying
the Whig leadership: Ebrington himself appeared on a list of potential
peer-creations that was drawn up to increase the pressure on the Lords. When
the Government resigned in the face of Tory intransigence in the House of
Lords, Ebrington took the lead, despite leadership hesitations, in moving that
the House of Commons implore the King “to call to his councils such persons
only as will carry into effect unimpaired in all its essential provisions that
Bill for reforming the Representation of the people which has recently passed
this House”.
During the 1830s, Ebrington led a strong body of Reformist Whigs; and
he played a prominent role in establishing Whig party organisation under the
new electoral system. In 1839, as Baron Fortescue, he served under Lord
Melbourne as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, until
in 1841 he succeeded his father in the earldom. He went on to serve under Lord John Russell as Lord Steward from 1846 to 1850; was sworn of the Privy
Council in 1839; and created a Knight of the Garter in
1856. A statue of the Earl stands in Exeter Castle Yard, and his marble bust is
displayed on the staircase of the Memorial Hall in West Buckland School. 49 of
the Fortescue family portraits were saved from the disastrous fire at Castle
Hill of 9 March 1934 with minor smoke damage, but were shortly afterwards all
destroyed by fire when the delivery lorry returning them from the restorer
caught fire whilst parked overnight pending their return to Castle Hill. In
1858 together with Rev. J.L. Brereton, Prebendary of Exeter Cathedral and Rector of West Buckland, he founded
the Devon County School,
situated on land between West Buckland and East Buckland donated by him from his North Devon estate
centred at Filleigh. The school was intended to
provide a top quality education to local boys, including therefore the sons of
many of his tenant farmers; it continues today as West Buckland School, an
independent private school. A marble bust of Earl Fortescue, sculpted in 1861
by Edward Bowring Stephens (1815–82),
stands on the staircase of the school's Memorial Hall.
