The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-08-15 00:00:00

DEATH OF LORD HOUGHTON.

The death of Lord Houghton, of Fryston Hall, has
occurred at Vichy. The news was received with
much regret in Pontefract, which his lordship repre-
sented in Parliament for a quarter of a century.
The Right Hon. Richard Monckton Manes, D.C.L.,
LL.D., F.R S., &c., first Baron Houghton, of Fryston
Hall, Ferrybridge, and Bawtry Hall, Yorkshire, was
descended from an old Yorkshire family, his father,
of whom he was the only son, having been Mr.
Robert Pemberton Milnes, of Fryston Kali, Bawtry
Hall, and Great Houghton, Yorkshire, for many
ears one of the representatives of that county in
Parliament. By tile maternal side he was descended
from the Monckton family, his mother having been
the Hon. Isitnirietta Maria, second daughter of Robert,
the fourth Viscount Galway. He was born on June
19, 1809, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge
(of which foundation he was an honorary Fellow),
where he graduated B.A. in duo course, and pro-
ceeded to his M.A. degree in 1831. Six years later
he entered public life as member for Pontefract in
the Conservative interest, and this borough he con-
tinued to represent for the long period of over a
quarter of a century, the tie between the member and
his constituents only being severed in August, 1863,
at the close of the Parliamentary Session of that
year, when, upon the recommendation of the late
Lord Palmerston, he was raised to the peerage.
Entering **Parliament as a follower of Sir Robert
Peel, he supported that great statesman in his
measure for the repeal of the Corn Laws, and
after the disruption of the Conservative party,
caused by the passing of that measure, gra-
dually connected himself with the Whig section
of the Liberal party, of which the late Earl
Russell (then Lord John Russell) was at that time
the leading member in the Lower House. For Lord
Palmerston he always professed a cordial admiration
and esteem, and, though he declined the honour of a
seat in the noble viscount's Goveinment, when offered
for his acceptance, he ever awarded to Lord Palmer-
ston a consistent and undivided support, and this, too,
at a time when Lord Palmerston's foreign policy and
high-handed dealings at the Foreign Office in support
of his Civis Romansts suns doctrines led to the tem-
porary estrangement of that genial statesman from the
Whigs. It was not, however, for his prominence in
general politics, but rather for his advocacy of the
cause of the oppressed, and for the interest which he
took in philanthropic works, that the deceased peer's
Parliamentary career willbe best remembered. Mainly
directing his attention toforeign affairs and the reform
of our penal institutions, he both spoke and wrote on
behalf of the Poles, Italians, and other op-
pressed nationalities, and ,by the warmth of
his sympathy and the eloquence of his language did
much to advance their cause. As an advocate of
public education and religious equality he devoted
considerable time to these subjects, and also to the
reform of the degraded juvenile classes, introducing in
1846 into the douse of Commons the first bill for the
establishment of juvenile reformatories. This bill he
carried to a successful issue, and one of its first
results was the establishment by the Philanthropic
Sociaty of the great reformatory institution at Red-
bill, the first stone of which was laid in 1849 by the
late Prince Consort, and of which Lord Houghton
was for so many years the president. In this move-
ment he retained his interest to the last, and in 1873
presided over the annual meeting of the Social
Science Congress, held at Norwich, where these sub-
jects were closely discussed.
_

- A great traveller, Lord Houghton travelled much
in Oriental countries, and has given to the world a
record of his travels in the south-eastern portion of
Europe, under the title of "Memorials of a Tour in
Greece." He wrote many poems, and in one of his
publi.hed works, entitled, "Palm Leaves,' threw a
domestic halo around the manners and domestic
customs of the East by his polished description of
both of these. In 1849 he edited "The Life, Letters,
and Literary Remains of John Keats," a critical and
explanatory work which achieved a great success. He
was also the author of "Thoughts on Purity of
Election,' and of many political and literary articles
for periodical publications connected with the subjects
of the day—notably "One Tract More," in the Oxford
controversy of" Tracts for the Times," and "The Real
Union of England and Ireland," in which he advocated
the concurrent endowment of the Protestant and Catho-
lic Churches. Lord Houghton also published Pceuas
of Many Years" and "Poems Historical and Legen-
dary," which both contain many simple and elegant
effusions. His last works were "Monographs,
Personal and Social," with portraits, and "Mono-
graphs, Political and Literary." In these volumes
Lord Houghton has given his recollections of and
judgments upon many of his contemporaries, and in a
charming manner placed before his readers such per.
sonages as Von Humboldt, Cardinal Wiseman, Walter
Savage Landor, the Rev. Sydney Smith, Heinrich
Heine, &c., and has, as he himself said, endeavoured
tl produce a truthful impression by a combination of
general and personal observations, which, while
leaving the characters in the main to speak for them-
selves, aimed at something like a literary unity of
design.
The deceased nobleman, who was raised to the
Upper House by the title of Baron Houghton, of
Great Houghton,. was created a hon. D.C.L. of
Oxford in 1854, and a hon. LL.D. of Edinburgh in
1875. He was also a deputy-lieutenant and magis-
trate for the West Riding of Yorkshire, and has
been a captain in the West York Militia since 1840.
He was president of the Newspaper Press Fund; a
trustee of the Royal Geographical Society; ex-
president of the Statistical Society; a grand dignitary
of the Brazilian Order of the Rose, and lori of the
manors of Fryston and Houghton. He married in
1831 the Hon. Annabeill Hungedprd Crewel sec2nd
daughter of Tan, second Baron Crowe, 1311 was left
a widower in 1874. By this marriage be leaves
issue one son and two daughters, the son and suc-
cessor to the title being the Hon. Robert Olney
Ashburton Milnes, who was born on Jan. 12, 1858,
and educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cam-
bridee, and who is a lieutenant in the Ist West York
Yeomanry Cavalry.