ANDERSON PELHAM, Hon. George (1785-1835).

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1806 - 1807
23 Feb. 1808 - 1820

Family and Education

b. 15 Sept. 1785, 2nd s. of Charles Anderson Pelham*, 1st Baron Yarborough, and bro. of Hon. Charles Anderson Pelham*. educ. by Rev. George Foote, Boughton Malherbe, Kent 1794; Eton 1796. unm.

Offices Held

Ensign, 2 Ft. Gds. 1803, lt. and capt. 1806, ret. 1810; maj. N. Lincs. yeoman cav. 1814.

High steward, Grimsby 1815.

Biography

Anderson Pelham was returned for Grimsby on his family interest as soon as he came of age and as colleague to his elder brother. Like him he supported the Grenville ministry and voted against their successors, 9 Apr. 1807. He was defeated at Grimsby at the ensuing election, but had another and safer seat to fall back on, thanks to his brother’s marriage in 1806 to the heiress to an interest in one seat for Newtown. This was vacated for him in February 1808. He had on 27 June 1807 joined Brooks’s Club. Until he gave up the army in 1810, he could not be relied on to attend the House. One minority vote, favourable to Catholic relief, is recorded, 25 May 1808, but the Whigs listed him among their adherents in March 1810. On 1 and 21 Jan. 1811 he voted with them on the Regency, and on 4 and 27 Feb. 1812 on Morpeth’s and Turton’s motions: all these in his brother’s absence from the House. Like him he further voted against the orders in council, 3 Mar., for Catholic relief, 24 Apr., for a more efficient administration, 21 May, and against the leather tax, 26 June 1812.

Anderson Pelham supported Catholic relief, his brother being absent, in the session of 1813 and again, like him, on 30 May 1815. They both voted for retrenchment and against foreign entanglements in the ensuing session, though both paired on 6 Mar. for a few days and were shut out of the minority of 25 Apr., while George alone voted against the Bank restriction, 1 May 1816. Like his brother he opposed the suspension of habeas corpus in February and June 1817, but opposed Burdett’s motion for parliamentary reform on 20 May. He signed the requisition to Tierney to lead the opposition in 1818 and supported his critical motions of 2 Feb. and 18 May 1819. He supported burgh reform, 1 Apr., 6 May 1819 and opposed public lotteries and the malt duty, 9 June. He also opposed the foreign enlistment bill, 3, 10 June 1819. In the ensuing session, like his brother, he was in the minority until 2 Dec. 1819, but presumably, like him, became an alarmist thereafter. No speech is known.

On 21 Feb. 1820 Yarborough informed Fitzwilliam:

I need not repeat how much I am concerned at my son George’s firm determination to quit Parliament altogether. I have always found it difficult to get him out and this decision of his will make him still more recluse.

He died 14 June 1835.

T.64/260, Bentinck to Arbuthnot, 6 Mar. [1816]; Wentworth Woodhouse mun. F48/161.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: R. G. Thorne

Notes