Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon

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Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon (drawing by George Richmond )

Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon PC , PC (I) ( February 8, 1790 - February 7, 1866 ) was a British politician of the Torys , then the Whigs and finally the Liberal Party , which between 1830 and 1839 Member of the House of Commons , Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in 1834 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1835 to 1839 . In 1839 he was raised to a peer and thus a member of the House of Lords .

Life

Family background and member of the House of Commons

Thomas Spring Rice was the youngest of three children by Stephen Edward Rice and his wife Catherine Spring. His oldest sister Mary Rice was the wife of Sir Aubrey de Vere, 2nd Baronet , while his second oldest sister Catherine Ann Rice died unmarried in 1829. Other ancestors included his paternal great-grandfather Stephen Rice, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer from 1687 to 1690, and his great-grandfather Walter Spring, who was involved in the Irish Confederation Wars from 1641 to 1653. In addition, two of his great-great-grandfathers were the 11th and 14th Knight of Kerry ( The Green Knight ), next to The White Knight and the Knight of Glin ( The Black Knight ) one of the three Angloir hereditary knights.

Thomas Spring Rice even graduated from the Trinity College of the University of Cambridge and the lower house (was for the Tories on July 3, 1820 for the first time as a member of the House of Commons ) selected in which he until 22 December 1832, first the constituency of Limerick took . In July 1827 he took over his first government office, until January 1828 as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in the governments of Prime Minister George Canning and Frederick Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich .

After joining the Whigs, he was Joint Secretary of the Treasury during the tenure of Prime Minister Charles Gray, 2nd Earl Gray from November 2, 1830 to July 16, 1834 . As such, he became a member of the Privy Council (PC) on June 5, 1834 . For the Whigs he was re-elected to the House of Commons on December 10, 1832 and represented the Cambridge constituency until August 31, 1839 .

War and Colonial Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Member of the House of Lords

In the cabinet of Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne , Rice was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies between July 16 and November 17, 1834 . In the second cabinet of Viscount Melbourne he took over the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer on April 18, 1835 and held this office until his replacement by Francis Thornhill Baring on August 26, 1839. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was also on the commission for the office of the Lord High Treasurer . In addition, on December 11, 1835, he became a member of a commission of inquiry that dealt with the cooperation of various ministries in the civil defense of the army. In his capacity as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1837 he contributed significantly to the financing of The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle , a multi-part work published under the supervision of Charles Darwin , in which the zoological results of his journey, which began in late 1831 and lasted almost five years, were included the HMS Beagle were released. At the same time, he was the successor of John Newport, 1st Baronet, from April 18, 1835 until his death on February 7, 1866, as the Comptroller General of the Exchequer and was thus responsible for approving the disbursement of public funds from the Treasury the other ministries.

After leaving the House of Commons, Rice was raised to the hereditary nobility of the Peerage of the United Kingdom by a letters patent dated September 5, 1839 as Baron Monteagle of Brandon , of Brandon in the County of Kerry, and was thus a member of the House of Lords ( House of Lords ). In 1841 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).

Marriages and offspring

Thomas Spring Rice was married twice and on July 11, 1811, his first marriage was Theodosia Pery, a daughter of Edmund Pery, 1st Earl of Limerick . From this marriage there were eight children. The eldest daughter Theodosia Alicia Ellen Frances Charlotte Spring Rice was married to Henry Taylor, the second oldest daughter Mary Alicia Pery Spring Rice was at times the maid of honor of Queen Victoria . The third oldest daughter was Catherine Anne Lucy Spring Rice. His eldest son Stephen Edmond Spring Rice was vice chairman of the Board of Customs , but died on May 9, 1865 before his father. The second eldest son, Charles William Thomas Spring Rice, was temporarily Deputy Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs . The third oldest son was Edmond Henry Francis Louis Spring Rice. The fourth eldest son was the clergyman Aubrey Richard Spring Rice, who was, among other things, vicar in Netherbury. The youngest son, William Cecil Spring Rice, was a barrister and temporarily secretary of the Commission for the Mentally Ill ( Lunacy Commission ).

After the death of his first wife Theodosia Pery in December 1839, he married Mary Anne Marshall on April 13, 1841. This marriage remained childless. Mount Monteagle , discovered in January 1841 by polar explorer James Clark Ross in East Antarctica , was named in his honor.

On his death on February 7, 1866, his grandson and eldest son of his eldest son Stephen Edmond Spring Rice, Thomas Spring Rice , inherited the title of 2nd Baron Monteagle of Brandon .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ London Gazette . No. 19161, HMSO, London, June 5, 1834, p. 1041 ( PDF , accessed July 21, 2016, English).
  2. ↑ Other Lords of the Treasury as members of the commission at the Lord High Treasurer were temporarily Edward Adolphus Seymour, Lord Seymour (1835 to 1839), William Henry Ord (1835 to 1837), Robert Steuart (1835 to 1839), Richard More O'Ferrall (1835 to 1839), John Parker (1837 to 1839). In: London Gazette . No. 19271, HMSO, London, May 19, 1835, p. 963 ( PDF , accessed July 21, 2016, English). London Gazette . No. 19522, HMSO, London, July 18, 1837, p. 1832 ( PDF , accessed July 21, 2016, English).
  3. ↑ London Gazette . No. 19337, HMSO, London, December 11, 1835, p. 2476 ( PDF , accessed July 21, 2016, English).
  4. ↑ After Rice's death on February 7, 1866, the office created by the Act to Regulate the Office of the Receipt of his Majestys Exchequer on October 11, 1834 remained vacant until June 20, 1866 and was not reoccupied thereafter.
  5. ↑ London Gazette . No. 20125, HMSO, London, August 2, 1842, p. 2111 ( PDF , accessed July 21, 2016, English).
  6. ↑ London Gazette . No. 19764, HMSO, London, August 27, 1839, p. 1660 ( PDF , accessed July 17, 2016, English).
  7. ↑ The son of Charles William Thomas Spring Rice was the diplomat Cecil Spring-Rice , who was, among other things, envoy to Persia, envoy to Sweden and ambassador to the United States
predecessor Office successor
New title created Baron Monteagle of Brandon
1839-1866 		Thomas Spring Rice
personal data
SURNAME Rice, Thomas Spring, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British peer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1790
DATE OF DEATH February 7, 1866