OLD POLITICAL FAMILIES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 16

OLD POLITICAL FAMILIES

ALLIANCES THAT MEANT -■■" power"

• Lord Robert Cecil's promotion to. the > Lords will add another to the MisV. of ••famous old political families which have •blossomed into new titles, -besides in.creasing tlie'strength of what the irrevjerenfc used^io'call "the Hotel Cecil" in House-of :Lcrds, states a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian. The 'Cecil connection now includes Lord Sal*isbury, Lord Balfour, the Bishop of Exefter, Lord Selbourne, and Lord Harlech. ■In recent years the house has.' allied\ jt'self doubly with the Cavendish clan, and t'lere is also the old connection with the Exeter marquisate. This makes a, list, though it is" hardly to ;be compared with that of Lord John •^Russell as Prime Minister, with his ■father-in-law as Privy Seal, tw.o bro-thers-in-law as Colonial Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and two cousins as Home Secretary and War But it has often been the custom of old houses to throw out new in the peerage. The Russells added to the Dukedom of Bedford the Earldom of Russell, and the Barony of Ampthill. The Stanleys were reinforced in the Lords, when the eventual second Lord Stanley of Alderley was created ■Baron Eddisbury in 1848, two years .^before his father's death.

: Stanley of Alderley itself was an offphoot originally from the great "Derby" clan, and the Derby branch blossomed ■anew in the Lords when "Rupert" was icalled up in 1844 in his father's barony. The Stanhope clan provides another case, with the Chesterfield and Stanhope earldoms and the more recent [creation for a younger son of the Weardale title. The-Greys have given us the' offshoot of Grey of Fallodon from the old earldom. The Egertons have given jis the Ellesmere, Wilton, and Ejrerton of Tatton titles'.-