The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-06 00:00:00

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No case of interest occurrct in any of the othe
parishes.
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There were forty-seven fresh claims made by treb-
-1
traders, of which forty-four were subioantiated.

DEATH OF SIR CHI

(From the Times)
This-event, which took place at Wolesley-hall, in Staf-
fbrdahire, on Saturday last, was neither premature, nor
unexpected. The youthful part of the present generation
may probably consider Sir Charles to have been a person
who occupied so little of public attention that he might
be permitted now to descend into the grave without any
very especial notice; but the elder portion of our., readers
will readily recollect that he rendered himsr if in no t,ligl,t
degree remarkable during that part of the Relorin tr,i-
tationS in which Hunt and Cobbett took voiniet-nt
parts. The course that Sir Cloud( Y. thin OM lied ens,
for such a man, really singular. Ile w s a Tkr: on of
good substance, and belonging to the higher classes
of society, both in right of his birth and of his title.
If he had possessed a scat in the House of Commons,
his standing forward as an advocate of Parliamentary
Reform in that assembly would have occasioned no sur-
prise whatever; but that he, a gentleman we believe in
all senses of the word, shottid have associated himself
with the seditious deinag gues out of doers, who took
advantage of general distress and popular ignorance to
promote their own sinister and unworthy objects, was a
course of conduct for which scarcely any parallel can be.
found. That he was extremely eccentric those who
knew him will be quite ready to admit, but he was pee-
baps the only man amongst his contemporaries who,
without any mean or selfish purposes, permitted him-
self to be made so completer an instrument in the hands
of those who then traded upon the virtue of patriotism,
and hoped to share in the plunder of a revolution.
From all that baseness Sir Charley Wolesley was
perfectly free, and it is only fair and just that the close
of his life should be attended by seine expression of re -
gretand respect. He was in the 78th year of his age,
having been born on the 20th of July, 1769. The family
from which Sir Charles was descended is one of con-
siderable antiquity, but it was often difficult to repress
a smile at the earnestness with which the dignity of
his ancestry used to be insisted on by those who desired
to make him an efficient instrument in the cause of sedi-
tion. With them a Tory squire was "the tenth transmitter
of a foolish face," but in a democrat ancient birth was
"a jewel of price;" and there can be no doubt thfft
the Wolesleys are one of the best families in Stafford-
shire.
Their founder was Siwardus, Lord of Wiaelgi
the fifth in descent from him was Robert Lord of-NS o-
lesley, who appears to have been the head of the family
in the thirteenth century, and Ralph, another descend-
ant, was one of the Barons of the Exchequer in the
time of Edward IV. Sir Robert, the first of the family
who received a baronetcy, was so created on the 24th of
November, 1625, and held the office of Clerk of the
Patents in Chancery. The fifth son of Sir Robert qc-
companied William 111. to Ireland, commanded the
Enniskillen men at the battle of the Boyne, and after-
wards became one of the Lords Justices of Ireland. Sir
Charles, the eldest son of Sir Robert,. was Member for
Stafford in the reign of Charles 1., and his son becamo
a zealous adherent of Cromwell, so that there appears
to have been in this race a tendency to Liberalism in the
17th century, as well as in the 19th. The third baronet,
Sir William, was drowned on the Bth of Jllly, 1,Z28, is
fording a brook, when he, his horses, and Carriage were
carried away by the sudden bursting of a mill-dam. Of
the fourth and fifth baronets nothing memorable
is recorded. The sixth married. Miss Chambers, of
Wimbledon, in Surrey, and the eldest surviving issue of
that marriage forms' the subject of the present nottice.
He was the seventh baronet, and was twice married, first
on the 13th of December, 1794, to Afary,!daughter of the
Hon. Thomas Clifford, of Tixall, in Staffordshire, by
whom he had three children. This lady died on the
16th July, 1811, and within one year from that date Sit
Charles, being then in the 43d year of his age, married,
on the 2d of July, 1812, Anne, the youngest daughter
of Anthony Wright, Esq., of Wealdside, in the county
of Essex, by whom he had six children.
The subject of this notice succeeded to the baronetcy
upon the death of his father, in the month of August,
1817. At that precise period the transition from a state
of war to a state of peace, combined with the influence
of a succession of deficient harvests, produced very
general distress, dried up the sources of manufacturingprosperity, produced much disturbance amongst the
town population, and as usual led to a clamorous de-
mand for a change in the representation ofßirehmareaitntapgkeheoaspralq
AtWhsehmlelnT
ossioeusciheys
largelyeinitaiiml
aeissn
thentsotare
ee
neighbourhood
fobaaortufrri
nio omoo d placeo f
that
com-
mercial emporium, Sir Charles was . selected by the
Brummagem patriots as the best card in their hand ;
they, therefore, prevailed on him to attend pia
consultations of their committees, to move their
resolutions at public meetings, and even occa-
sionally to address large assemblies of that,
class out of which those political unions were
formed, which so materially promoted the passing of the
Reform Act. Thus carried on step by step, Sir Charles
Wolesley ended by becoming a Radical Reformer. His
admirers in that town, which has been called the " great
smithy of the nation," considered that they ought to be
represented in the great council of the nation; and thus
principle bas certainly been recognised in the memorable
measure of reform; but in the days when Sir arks
Wolesley was a demagogue the idea of clecti a
cN
Member for Birmingham was regarded as something
just short of high treason. The sturdy smiths of Eng-
land's forge were, however, resolved to secure the
agency of a legislatorial attorney, and incontinehtly
they summoned a meetings which took place at Newhall-
hill, near Birmingham, on the 12th of May, 1819. As
, ~
every experienced politician expected, this terminated an
mere smoke, and the whimsical crotchet eAlegislatorial
attorney ended where it began, with the clrmorous elec-
tion of Sir Charles, by 15,000 or 20,000, some say 50,000,
of the men of Birmingham and its vicinity! It was pre-
tending to send a man to Parliament, who—as the electors
well knew—could not sit; and therefore to Wen exterft 1
resembled the Clare election in 1828, when, before fhe
Emancipation Act, altoman Catholic was returned. The re-
sults of the latter, however, assumed a very serious
aspect, while those of the former were simply ludicrous.
Still the desire of Sir Charles to become a popular idol
was not baffled by the ill-success of the scheme which
made him an attorney. It is true that Mr. Wooler and
others were tried for this attempt to force their favourite
Baronet into the House of Commons; that they were
convicted and imprisoned. Unfortunately Sir Charles
was not to be taught by the lessons which the experience'
of others presented; and accordingly we find him in the
same year making a speech at Stockport, for which he
was brought to trial and suffered twelve months' im--
prisonment. Every effort was made to give his trial,
his imprisonment, and even his liberation all advantages
to be derived from theatrical effect and popular
enthusiasm; but the measures taken fdr that p pose
i
were not quite so successful as they usually pro , for
Sir Charles was not a first-rate demagogue, and the
distress of the working classes was gradually be-
ginning to abate. But the reforming propensities of
Sir Charles were not destined yet to undergo any
abatement. On the 11th of March, 1820, he was again
brought to trial for sedition, jointly with a man of
the name of Joseph Harrison, a schoolmaster,- This
proceeding took place at the Chester assizes; both were
found guilty, and sentenced to eighteen months' impri-
sonment. Even these heavy punishments did not alto-
gether check the mistaken zeal of Sir Charles Welesler;
for he is found continuing to attend Reform meetings- as
long as they continued to be held ; but when the hor
Lord Sidmouth ceased to be Home Secretary, alki Mr.
Canning began to lead the Ministerial party, it so hap-
pened that the question of Parliamentary Reform went
somewhat out of fashion, and the only occasion which
presented itself for the display of Sir Charles Wolesley's
patriotism was that of becoming one o 4 the sureties for
Mr. Hunt upon his liberation from Ilchester gaol. Par-
liamentary reform, though it slumbered for a season,
awoke in 1830 with an energy which proved to be the
harbinger of eventual triumph. But by that time Sir
Charles had declined into the vale of years. The frost
of more than threescore winters had chilled in his heart
sthtoeodspfiorritwoafrd to leadpolitical enterprise. Mightier Mmoigvhemtieernt,maenndththanerhe-e:
fore he retired to his proper position in society, finding
his days as he ought to have spent his entire life—in the
privacy of his own home.

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