William Cowper-Temple, 1st Baron Mount Temple

William Cowper-Temple, 1st Baron Mount Temple (around 1880)

William Francis Cowper-Temple, 1st Baron Mount Temple PC (* 13. December 1811 in Brocket Hall , Hertfordshire , † 17th November 1888 in the estate Broadlands , Romsey , Southampton , Hampshire ) was a British politician of the Whig and most recently the Liberal Party , who was a member of the House of Commons between 1835 and 1880 and was a minister several times. In 1880 he was raised to the hereditary nobility as Baron Mount Temple and was a member of the House of Lords until his death .

Life

Family origins and siblings

His stepfather, Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston became his sponsor and appointed him to his governments

Cowper was the fourth child and second son of Peter Leopold Louis Francis Nassau Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper , and his wife Emily Mary Lamb , a daughter of Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne . His mother's older brother was William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne , who served twice as Prime Minister .

His eldest sister, Frances Elizabeth Cowper, was the wife of Robert Jocelyn, Viscount Jocelyn , who represented the Conservative Tories as a member of the House of Commons from 1852 to 1854 .

His older brother George Augustus Frederick Cowper, 6th Earl Cowper, was also a member of the House of Commons for the Whigs between 1830 and 1835, temporarily Undersecretary in the State Department and inherited the title of 6th Earl Cowper and subordinate titles of nobility in 1837 after the death of his father thereby became a member of the House of Lords. He also served from 1846 to 1856 as Lord Lieutenant of the County of Kent .

His second oldest sister Lady Emily Caroline Catherine Frances Cowper was married to Anthony Ashley-Cooper , who was also a member of the lower house for the Tories from 1826 to 1851 and inherited the title of 7th Earl of Shaftesbury and the associated membership in the House of Lords in 1851 . His younger brother Charles Spencer Cowper was the husband of Lady Harriett Anne Janes Frances Gardiner, daughter of Charles Gardiner, 1st Earl of Blessington .

After the death of his father, his mother remarried on December 16, 1839, namely Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston , who was interior minister , foreign minister and from 1855 to 1858 and again between 1859 and 1865 prime minister. He also took his family name and then called himself Cowper-Temple.

Officer, Member of the House of Commons and Junior Minister

Cowper completed his schooling at the prestigious Eton College and began his military service in the Royal Horse Guards in 1830 , where he was promoted to captain in 1835 . His last promotion to major took place in 1852 .

His political career began when he was elected as a candidate for the Whigs on January 6, 1835 for the first time to the House of Commons, where he initially represented the Hertford constituency until November 17, 1868 . He had narrowly prevailed against the previous conservative mandate holder Henry Chetwynd-Talbot .

His first government took office Cowper when he on 30 June 1846 by Prime Minister John Russell to Lord of the Admiralty (Lord of the Admiralty) was appointed and held that post until February 23. 1852 After a temporary 300-day government of the Conservative Party, he took on 19 December 1852 in the so-called Peelite - coalition , a government of Prime Minister George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen , once again the office of Lord of the Admiralty and practiced this up on February 6, 1855.

He then took over in the first government of his stepfather Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, first on February 6, 1855, the office of Undersecretary in the Home Office ( Home Office ) .

Minister in the Palmerston and Russell administrations

The passenger ship Mount Temple , which was commissioned in 1901 and ran aground off Nova Scotia in 1907, was christened in his honor

On August 13, 1855, as part of a cabinet reshuffle , he was appointed Minister of Health (President of the Board of Health) by his stepfather Viscount Palmerston as successor to Benjamin Hall, Baronet Llanover , and held this position until his replacement by William Monsell, 1. Baron Emly on February 9, 1857. Simultaneously, in 1855, he was appointed a member of the Privy Council (PC). He then served between February 5, 1857 and the end of Palmerston's tenure on February 21, 1858 as the first Vice-President of the Committee of the Council of Education . In addition, he took over from September 24, 1857 to February 21, 1858 from William Monsell again as Minister of Health.

Two months after his stepfather Viscount Palmerston for the second time Prime Minister had become on June 12, 1859 Cowper was from that on August 12, 1859 Paymaster General ( Paymaster General ) called and held this position until February 9, 1860. This Office was also connected to the position as Vice-President of the Board of Trade .

Then he took over on February 9, 1860 as part of a government reshuffle in the second Palmerston cabinet, the office of Minister for Public Works (First Commissioner of Works and Buildings) from Henry FitzRoy , while Sir William Hutt took over his successor as Paymaster General. He held the office of First Commissioner of Works and Buildings until June 26, 1866 in the second government of Earl Russell, who had taken over the office of Prime Minister again on October 18, 1865 after the death of the 3rd Viscount Palmerston.

On November 17, 1868 Cowper was re-elected member of the House of Commons for the Liberal Party and represented the constituency of Hampshire Southern until March 31, 1880 as the successor to his no longer-running party colleague Jervoise Clarke-Jervoise .

In addition to his political career, he was also CEO of the Armstrong-Whitworth shipyard . Him built by the shipyard and 1901 for which was in honor of the shipping company Elder Dempster Lines in service passenger ship Mount Temple baptized, which before 1907 Nova Scotia ran aground.

House of Lords and Marriages

Baron Mount Temple died on Broadlands , the Temple family estate

After leaving the House of Commons, Cowper-Temple was raised to a hereditary peer by a letters patent from May 25, 1880 as Baron Mount Temple , of Mount Temple in the County Sligo, and was thus a member of the House of Lords until his death .

Baron Mount Temple, who died on the Viscount Palmerstons Broadlands estate, was married twice. His first marriage was on June 27, 1843, with Harriet Alicia Gurney, a daughter of the banker Daniel Gurney , and his wife, Lady Harriet Jemima Hay, a daughter of William Hay, 17th Earl of Erroll . However, his wife died two months later on August 28, 1843.

After the death of his first wife, Cowper-Temple married Georgiana Tollemache, a daughter of Admiral John Richard Delap Tollemache and his wife Lady Elizabeth Stratford, a daughter of John Stratford, 3rd Earl of Aldborough, on November 22, 1848 .

Since both marriages remained childless and Baron Mount Temple died without male descendants, the title of nobility expired on his death on November 17, 1888.

Web links

• William Cowper-Temple, 1st Baron Mount Temple at Hansard (English)
• Entry in Cracroft's Peerage
• Entry in Leigh Rayment Peerage
• William Francis Cowper-Temple, 1st and last Baron Mount Temple of Mount Temple on thepeerage.com , accessed August 19, 2015.

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Baron Mount Temple 1880–1888	Title expired
Benjamin Hall	President of the Board of Health 1855-1857	William Monsell
William Monsell	President of the Board of Health 1857-1858	Charles Adderley
James Wilson	Paymaster General 1859-1860	William Hutt
Henry FitzRoy	First Commissioner of Works 1860-1866	John Manners