POLITICAL FAMILIES

Taranaki Daily News, 17 January 1933, Page 3

POLITICAL FAMILIES

SOME CELEBRATED PEDIGREES.

FROM FATHER TO SON.

Father and son and grandson have often succeeded one another as holders of a seat in the House of Commons. In the eighteenth century, as Mr.. M. T, Namier has shown -in his brilliant work on England’s political life at that period, there were “parliamentary families” whose sons regarded it as their natural destiny to go into Parliament. . , _ .. This aspect of the nations Parliamentary life is strongly brought out in the report of the committee to consider’ the publication of a record of Members of Parliament from 1264 to 1832. The report pointe out that the most adventurous and energetic men of their time went into 4 Parliament, and that often succeeding generations of their descendants became members of the House of Commons. Even to-day many descendants of Parliamentarians of centuries ago are active workers in the Legislature. Strangely enough, pride of Parliamentary ancestry in the House of Commons can be claimed by a woman, the Countess of Iveagh. She is the descendant of three Speakers Onslow, who presided over the House for thirtyfour years. For hundreds of years there was ■ always an Onslow in the House of Commons.

Surrey voters, including those of Guildford and Haslemere were divided over the claims' put forward -by members of the family. Some were Whigs and some were Tories. In 1885, Guildford was merged in the county, and the Onslow representative at Guildford was supplanted by the then Mr. St. John Brodwick, now Earl of Middleton.

Viscountess ( Elveden, now the Countess of Iveagh, followed her husband in the representation of Southend. She is a daughter of the late Earl of Onslow, and has played a great part in the Conservative party’s organisation. Her brother, the present Earl of Onslow, is Chairman of Committees, House of Lords, and the family Parliamentary record is being maintained. Viscount Bridgeman, for many years member for West Shropshire, is descended from a ’ staunch Royalist, Sir Orlando, who was returned for Wigan 300 years ago. There were Cecils in the Long Parliament, and Lord Hugh Cecil is a descendant of the Peer who was allowed to sit in the Commons as a county member during the Commonwealth. The Gloucestershire Bathursts trace their line back to Dr. John Bathurst, Cromwell’s medical adviser. The Howards of Cumberland had ancestors in the Long Parliament, and so did the Longs of Wraxall, the Philipps (Lords St. David and Kylsant) go back to Sir Erasmus Philipps, the member for Pembroke centuries ago. There were Thynnes in the Long Parliament, the Devon Luttrells were there, and Lord Mildmay, for many years member for Totnes, had an ancestor who was the member for Maldon long before the Civil War.

Among the Irish members, the late John and Willie Redmond could trace their family back for centuries. It included a. member for Carrickfergus and Belfast in Cromwell’s time. Only a few years ago, three judges in London were the descendants of Speakers. The late Mr. Justice Bray could claim close, association with Sir Reginald Bray (Speaker in 1497), who fought at Bosworth and picked up the crown of Richard HI from the hawthorn bush.

The Brays, then an old Northampton family, adopted the hawthorn bush as their badge, and it continued down the centuries.

The other two descendants of a Speaker were the late Sir Thomas Snagge, County Court judge in the Oxford circuit, and his son, Sir Mordaunt Snagge, now County Court judge at Marylebone. Their ancestor -’as Speaker in 1588 in the Parliament summoned by Queen Elizabeth after the defeat of the Armada.