# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Grenville, George Nugent (1788-1850)

​GRENVILLE, GEORGE NUGENT, Baron Nugent of Carlanstown, co. Westmeath (1788–1850), younger son of George Nugent-Temple, first marquis of Buckingham [q. v.], by Lady Mary Elizabeth Nugent, only daughter and heiress of Robert, earl Nugent, was born on 30 Dec. 1788. His mother was created a baroness of the kingdom of Ireland in 1800, with remainder to her second son; and on her death (16 March 1813) he consequently succeeded to the peerage. Nugent was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and in 1810 received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the university. At the general election of 1812 he was returned to parliament for the borough of Aylesbury; but in 1818 he was in some danger of losing his seat in consequence of his brother, the Marquis of Buckingham, having joined the ministry. Nugent stood in his own interest, however, and was returned. He fought a second successful contest in 1831, and remained one of the members for Aylesbury until the dissolution in 1832. In November 1830 Nugent was made one of the lords of the treasury, but he resigned this position in August 1832 in order to proceed to the Ionian Islands as lord high commissioner. This office he retained for three years, returning to England with the reward of the grand cross of St. Michael and St. George. He again offered himself for Aylesbury in 1837 and 1839, but was defeated on both occasions; and in 1843, when he stood, in conjunction with the reformer George Thompson, for Southampton, he sustained a third defeat. On reappearing at Aylesbury in 1847 he was returned. Nugent was an extreme whig, or a whig-radical, in politics. He was a zealous supporter of Queen Caroline, and he visited Spain as a partisan of the Spanish patriots. In the session of 1848 Nugent moved for leave to bring in a bill abolishing the separate imprisonment in gaols of persons committed for trial, but the motion was lost. During the same session he advocated the abolition of capital punishment. In 1849 he voted for limiting the powers of the Habeas Corpus (Ireland) Suspension Bill, and also supported a measure for the further repeal of enactments imposing pains and penalties on Roman catholics on account of their religious observances.
Nugent was a man of refinement and of literary tastes. He published in 1812 ‘Portugal, a Poem.’ ‘Oxford and Locke’ (1829) defended the expulsion of Locke from the university of Oxford against the censures of Dugald Stewart. In 1832 Nugent published his sympathetic ‘Memorials of John Hampden.’ The work was favourably reviewed by Macaulay in the ‘Edinburgh’ and adversely by Southey in the ‘Quarterly.’ Nugent replied to Southey in a letter to Murray the publisher. After a time Southey replied in another letter ‘touching Lord Nugent.’ In 1845-6 Nugent issued in two volumes his ‘Lands Classical and Sacred,’ embodying the results of travel. He was also the author of ‘Legends of the Library at Lillies’ (the seat of his family) ‘by the Lord and Lady thereof’ (1832), and of a number of pamphlets on political, social, and ecclesiastical subjects.
Nugent married, 6 Sept. 1813, Anne Lucy, second daughter of Major-general the Hon. Vere Poulett, but as she died without issue ​in 1848, the barony became extinct on the death of Nugent, on 26 Nov. 1850, at his residence in Buckinghamshire. In private life Nugent was highly esteemed. He delighted in the society of literary men, and had a considerable fund of anecdote derived both from books and from a knowledge of the world.
G. B. S.