# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Brand, Henry Bouverie William

1904 Errata appended.
​BRAND, Sir HENRY BOUVERIE WILLIAM, first Viscount Hampden and twenty-third Baron Dacre (1814–1892), born on 24 Dec. 1814, was the second son of Henry Otway Brand, twenty-first Baron Dacre, by his wife Pyne, second daughter of the Hon. and Very Rev. Maurice Crosbie, dean of Limerick. The barony of Dacre had passed through the female line to the Fiennes family [see Fiennes, Thomas, ninth Baron Dacre], from them to the Lennards [see Lennard, Francis, fourteenth Baron Dacre], and from them to Charles Trevor Roper, eighteenth Baron Dacre (1745-1794); the eighteenth baron's sister Gertrude married Thomas Brand of The Hoo, Hertfordshire, father of Thomas Brand, twentieth Baron Dacre (whose wife was Barbarina Brand, lady Dacre [q. v.]), and great-grandfather of Viscount Hampden. Hampden's elder brother Thomas succeeded as twenty-second Baron Dacre, but died without issue in 1890, when the barony of Dacre devolved upon Viscount Hampden.
Brand was educated at Eton, where in 1829 he was in the lower division of the fifth form (Stapylton, Eton School Lists, p. 139). He did not proceed to any university, and on 16 April 1838, when twenty-three years of age, married Eliza, daughter of General Robert Ellice (1784-1856) and his wife Eliza Courtenay. His first political employment began in 1846, when he became private secretary to Sir George Grey [q. v.], secretary of state for home affairs. On 6 July 1852 he entered parliament as member for Lewes, for which he was re-elected on 27 March 1857, 29 April 1859, and 13 July 1865. On 26 Nov. 1868 he was returned for Cambridgeshire, which he continued to represent until his elevation to the peerage. For a few weeks in the spring of 1858 Brand was keeper of the privy seal to the prince of Wales, and on 9 June 1859 he succeeded Sir William Goodenough Hayter [q. v.] as parliamentary secretary to the treasury. He held this post under Palmerston and Russell until July 1866, when Derby came into power, and he continued to act as senior liberal whip for the two years during which the liberals were in opposition. When Gladstone took office in 1868 Brand was not included in the administration, his place at the treasury being occupied by George Grenfell Glyn, afterwards Baron Wolverton [q. v.]; but when John Evelyn Denison (afterwards Viscount Ossington) ​[q. v.] resigned the speakership of the House of Commons in February 1872, Brand was elected without opposition to succeed him. Brand's long tenure of the position of party whip caused doubts as to his fitness for the speakership, but these were soon solved by Brand's impartial performance of his duties; he endeared himself to the house by his uniform suavity (Mowbray, pp. 115, 118), and in 1874, when Disraeli returned to office, Brand was on 5 March, on the motion of Mr. Henry Chaplin, unanimously re-elected speaker (Lucy, Diary of two Parliaments, i. 6). The development of systematic obstruction under Parnell's auspices placed Brand in a position of unprecedented difficulties [see Parnell, Charles Stewart], and on 11 July 1879 Parnell moved a vote of censure on him for having ordered two clerks to take minutes of the speeches, on the ground that he had no power to do so; the motion was lost by 421 to 29 votes, one of the biggest majorities recorded in the history of parliament (Lucy, i. 485-6). Brand had in the same parliament some difficulty in dealing with Samuel Plimsoll [q. v. Suppl.]
After the general election of 1880 Brand was once more, on the motion of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland [q. v. Suppl.] on 30 April, unanimously elected speaker, but the return of the Parnellite home-rulers in increased numbers added to his difficulties, and their obstructive tactics culminated in the debate on W. E. Forster's motion for leave to introduce his coercion bill. The sitting, which began on 31 Jan. 1881, was by these means protracted for forty-one hours until 9 a.m. on Wednesday, 2 Feb. Brand, who had left the chair at 11.30 on the previous night, then returned, and ended the debate by refusing on his own responsibility to hear any more speeches. The strict legality of his action is perhaps doubtful, but it was justified by sheer necessity. It was the first check imposed upon members' power of unlimited obstruction; on the following day Gladstone introduced resolutions reforming the rules of procedure, and the speaker's powers of dealing with obstruction have subsequently been further increased. Brand's tenure of the speakership was henceforth comparatively uneventful; he received the unusual honour of G.C.B. at the close of the 1881 session, and in February 1884 resigned the chair on the ground of failing health. He was granted the usual pension of 4,000l. and viscountcy, being created on 4 March Viscount Hampden of Glynde, Sussex. His choice of title was probably determined by his descent in the female line from John Hampden [q. v.] For the rest of his life he devoted himself to agricultural experiments at Glynde, particularly in dairy farming. He was made lord-lieutenant of Sussex, and in 1890 succeeded his elder brother, Thomas Crosbie William, as twenty-third Baron Dacre. He died at Pau on 14 March 1892, and was buried at Glynde on the 22nd, a memorial service being held on the same day in St. Margaret's, Westminster. A portrait of Hampden, painted by Frank Holl, is at The Hoo, Welwyn, Hertfordshire, and a replica hangs in the Speaker's Court, Westminster.
By his wife, who died at Lewes on 9 March 1899, aged 81, Hampden had issue five sons and five daughters; the eldest son, Henry Robert (b. 1841), is the present Viscount Hampden; the second son, Thomas Seymour (b. 1847), is admiral, R.N.; the third son, Arthur (b. 1853), was M.P. for the Wisbech division of Cambridgeshire (1892-1895), and treasurer of the household in 1894-5.
[Burke's Peerage; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage, s.vv. ‘Dacre’ and ‘Hampden;’ Times, 16-23 March 1892 and 10 March 1899; Daily News, 16-23 March 1892; Annual Register, 1892 p. 165, 1899 p. 141; Official Return of Members of Parliament; Hansard's Parl. Debates; Lucy's Diary of two Parliaments; T. P. O'Connor's Gladstone's House of Commons; Andrew Lang's Life of Stafford Northcote; Sir John Mowbray's Seventy Years at Westminster, 1900; Childers's Life of H. C. E. Childers, 1901.]
A. F. P.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.290 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 257 | ii | 16 f.e. | Brand, Sir Henry B. W., 1st Viscount Hampden: after peerage. insert He was a lord of the treasury under Palmerston 17 April 1855 to 1 March 1858. |
| | | 13-11 f.e. | for succeeded Sir William . . . . the treasury. read became parliamentary secretary to the treasury, a post held in the previous liberal administration by Sir William Goodenough Hayter [q. v.]. |