# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cavendish, John (1732-1796)

1904 Errata appended.
​CAVENDISH, Sir JOHN (1732–1796), chancellor of the exchequer, was the fourth son of William, third duke of Devonshire, and his wife Catherine, daughter and heiress of John Hoskins of Middlesex. He was born on 22 Oct. 1732, and educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where the poet Mason was his tutor, who, upon his pupil leaving the university, addressed an elegy to him beginning with ‘Ere yet, ingenuous youth, thy steps retire’ (Works of William Mason, 1811, i. 93–96). Cavendish obtained the degree of M.A. in 1753. In April of the following year he was elected for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, which he continued to represent until the general election of 1761, when he was returned for Knaresborough. In July 1765 the Marquis of Rockingham became prime minister, and Cavendish was appointed one of the lords of the treasury. Upon the ​dismissal of the ministry, after being a little more than a year in office, he was offered by Lord Chatham a place in the Duke of Grafton's administration, but he declined to separate himself from his friend Lord Rockingham. From 1768 to 1784 he represented the city of York. On Lord Rockingham becoming prime minister for the second time, Cavendish was appointed chancellor of the exchequer on 27 March 1782, and on the same day was sworn a member of the privy council. Lord Rockingham died on 1 July, and Cavendish, refusing to serve under the Earl of Shelburne, retired from the ministry with Fox and other members of the Rockingham party. Early in the morning of 22 Feb. 1783 Cavendish's resolution censuring the terms of the peace was carried against the Shelburne ministry in the House of Commons by 207 to 190. Though Shelburne immediately resigned, Pitt retained office for some five weeks afterwards. At length, early in April 1783, William, third duke of Portland (who had married Cavendish's niece, the only daughter of William, fourth duke of Devonshire), became prime minister, and Cavendish was once more appointed chancellor of the exchequer. He had not been in office a fortnight before he was obliged to bring in a loan bill for raising nearly 12,500,000l., which he proposed to do by means of annuities and a lottery. On 26 May he introduced his first and only budget, one feature of which was the first imposition of a tax upon quack medicines (Parliamentary History, xxiii. 931–6). Owing to the king's unconstitutional interference, the East India Bill, which had been carried successfully through the commons, was rejected by the lords on 17 Dec., and the coalition ministry was dismissed in favour of Pitt. On Pitt's appeal to the country in June 1790, Cavendish failed to gain a seat, and consequently for four years disappeared from parliamentary life. In May 1794 he was elected for Derbyshire in the place of his brother, Lord George, and at the general election in June 1796 he was again re-elected for the same constituency. Cavendish was never married, and died at his brother's house at Twickenham on 18 Dec. 1796, in his sixty-fifth year. He was buried on the 26th in the family vault in All Saints' Church, Derby. Considering the position which he held in the House of Commons, he was by no means a frequent speaker. He voted in the minority on the debate on the illegality of general warrants, opposed the expulsion of Wilkes from the house, voted in favour of receiving the clerical petition, on which occasion he spoke strongly in favour of religious and political freedom, moved an amendment to the address deprecating a civil war, ‘of which he disapproved in the commencement and in all its stages,’ opposed the increase of the civil list, and supported Burke's plan for public economy and reform. Though the Duke of Richmond considered Cavendish to be ‘diffident of the effect of any parliamentary reform’ (Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham, ii. 481), he was elected a member of the committee of the Westminster Association on 2 Feb. 1780, and his name appears in the list of members which was made on 20 Feb. 1783. From an examination of the minutes, it appears, however, that he does not seem to have attended any of the meetings. Burke, in a letter to Dudley North dated 28 Dec. 1796, describes Cavendish as ‘one of the oldest and best friends I ever had, or that our common country possessed’ (Burke, Correspondence, iv. 550), and in sketching his character (ib. iv. 526–7), says that ‘he is a man who would have adorned the best of commonwealths at the brightest of its periods. An accomplished scholar, and an excellent critic, in every part of polite literature, thoroughly acquainted with history ancient and modern; with a sound judgment; a memory singularly retentive and exact, perfectly conversant in business, and particularly in that of finance; of great integrity, great tenderness and sensibility of heart, with friendships few and unalterable; of perfect disinterestedness; the ancient English reserve and simplicity of manner.’ Walpole, on the other hand, is never tired of sneering at him, the reason for which will be pretty obvious to any one who reads the references to Cavendish in the ‘Letters’ and ‘Memoirs.’ In reality Cavendish seems to have been a thoroughly honourable and upright man, whose speeches were more remarkable for their breadth of view and sound common sense than for any brilliance or originality of thought, and whose taste for literature and country pursuits (especially fox-hunting) was considerably stronger than for an active parliamentary life. Selwyn gave him the name of ‘the learned canary bird,’ on account of his prodigious memory and the smallness of his stature. His portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in February 1767 (Leslie and Taylor, Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1865, i. 282), and engraved by T. Grozer in 1786.
G. F. R. B.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.58 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 354 | i | 6 | Cavendish, Lord John: for 1790 read 1784 |
| | | 19-18 f.e. | for was defeated . . . . contest read failed to gain a seat |