William à Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury

William à Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury

William à Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury (also spelled A'Court ), GCB , PC (born July 11, 1779 in The Close, Salisbury , Wiltshire , † May 31, 1860 in Heytesbury , Wiltshire), was a British diplomat and Conservative Politician ( Tory ).

Live and act

William à Court came from the south-west English gentry family à Court . He was the eldest of three sons of the officer and parliamentarian William Pierce Ashe à Court , from 1795 Baronet , of Heytesbury House in the County of Wiltshire, and his second wife Laetitia Wyndham . His younger brothers were naval officer Edward Henry and army officer Charles .

After Eton's visit , he embarked on a career in the diplomatic service. From 1801 to 1807 he served as legation secretary and at times also Chargé d'affaires in the united kingdoms of Naples and Sicily . From 1805 he tried, with the support of his father's friends in parliament such as the Duke of Portland , to be promoted to a higher post in a German state or in Sardinia-Piedmont , but this failed. After the occupation of Naples by Napoleon's troops at the end of the third coalition war he returned to England.

Soon afterwards, in April 1807, he supported the 11th Earl of Pembroke on his diplomatic mission in Vienna ; the failure of the mission thwarted À Court's hopes for a post here. He rejected the half-hearted proposal that followed later to become interim ministerial plenipotentiary in Sicily for a short time .

In 1808 he married St. George's Maria Rebecca Bouverie (1783-1844), the daughter of parliamentarian William Henry Bouverie and granddaughter of the 1st Earl of Radnor on his father's side and the 14th Earl of Morton on his mother 's side in London's Church . The couple had six children, but only three of them reached adulthood and only two survived their father.

In 1812, À Court was appointed First Commissioner for Affairs in Malta and was given the task of establishing a civil government on the island, which had previously been administered by the British military. After his early return he ran in the election at the end of 1812 as the deputy of his brother-in-law Charles Henry Bouverie for the House of Commons . Bouverie was elected, but moved to another constituency, so that À Court moved into parliament for Dorchester at the end of December and belonged to the conservative Tory faction there.

In 1813, however, he was sent to the barbarian states as an extraordinary envoy to negotiate not only the problem of piracy but also about supplies for the British army in Spain . Due to his absence, he only took part in one vote in parliament, namely in March 1813, when he rejected the Catholic Relief Act .

In 1814 he returned to Naples , now as ministerial plenipotentiary (that is, the highest-ranking diplomat ) and at the same time gave up his seat in parliament; Samuel Shepherd succeeded him as Member of Parliament . In Naples he was supposed to reverse the influence of his liberal predecessor, William Bentinck . Despite his conservative stance, he was benevolent towards the (unsuccessful) revolution of 1920 , which was also supported by the British Foreign Office.

After he had not succeeded in obtaining the coveted position of ambassador in Berlin at the end of 1817 , he went to Spain in 1822 as ambassador extraordinary . In 1824 he became ambassador to Portugal . From 1828 to 1832 he was finally ambassador to the Russian Empire . His tsar friendly attitude during the Russian-Turkish war in 1828/29 led to conflict with the Prime Minister , the first Duke of Wellington .

With the death of his father, William à Court had already become 2nd baronet in 1817 . In the same year he was appointed to the Privy Council ; In 1819 he was beaten to the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath . In 1828 he was promoted to peer baron Heytesbury for his government services . A hereditary seat in the House of Lords was associated with the title .

In his hometown of Heytesbury , the À Court family owned almost all of the land; Due to the landowner's right to vote ( burgage holder ), William à Court was in fact able to determine the two members of parliament of the town himself ( pocket borough ). Brother Edward Henry occupied one of the two places for over a decade, and the second place was sold to the highest bidder. The younger brother Charles sat in Parliament for a few months and then took over the administrative duties for the mostly absent lord . In 1832 the Heytesbury constituency was dissolved by the Reform Act .

In 1835 Lord Heytesbury was to become Governor General of India , but this failed when the Peel government was overthrown . During Peel's second government, he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1844 to 1846 . His tenure was overshadowed by the great Irish famine .

From 1841 to 1857 he served as governor of the Isle of Wight , an honorary position mainly of a ceremonial nature. In his spare time he was also active as a writer and published the work Montalto: a Tragedy in Five Acts, with other Poems in 1840 .

Lord Heytesbury died in his estate in 1860 at the age of 80. Considered one of the most capable British diplomats of his time, he remained little known and was widely underrated.

His first and then only living son, William Henry, succeeded him as Baron Heytesbury . His daughter Cecilia Maria (1811-1889) married a son of Lord Dunsandle .

Web links

• RG Thorne, History of Parliament : A'COURT, William (1779-1860), of Heytesbury, Wilts.
• Muriel E. Chamberlain: A'Court, William, first Baron Heytesbury (1779-1860) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press , 2004; online edn, May 2009 (registration required)
• William Arthur Jobson Archbold, Sidney Lee (ed.): Heytesbury, William A'Court , Dictionary of National Biography 26, Smith, Elder & Co, London 1891 ( Wikisource )
• The National Archives : A'Court, William (1779-1860) 1st Baron Heytesbury, diplomat (GB / NNAF / P126070)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ www.holmesacourt.org: William à Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury
2. ↑ see web link RG Thorne, History of Parliament: A'COURT, William (1779-1860), of Heytesbury, Wilts
3. ↑ Stephen Farrell, History of Parliament  : Heytesbury
4. ↑ see web link Muriel E. Chamberlain: A'Court, William, first Baron Heytesbury (1779-1860), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

predecessor	Office	successor
William à Court	Baronet, of Heytesbury 1817-1860	William à Court
New title created	Baron Heytesbury 1828-1860	William à Court
Edward Thornton	British ambassador to Portugal 1824–1827	Frederick Lamb
Percy Smythe	British ambassador to Russia 1828–1832	Stratford Canning
James Harris	Governor of the Isle of Wight 1841–1857	Charles Shaw-Lefevre
Thomas de Gray	Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1844-1846	John Ponsonby