ANSON, Hon. Thomas William (1795-1854).

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

Constituency

Dates

1818 - 31 July 1818

Family and Education

b. 20 Oct. 1795, 1st s. of Thomas Anson*, 1st Visct. Anson, and bro. of Hon. George Anson*. educ. Eton c.1809-13; Christ Church, Oxf. 1814. m. 11 Feb. 1819, Louisa Barbara Catherine, da. of Nathaniel Phillips of Slebech Hall, Pemb., 4s. 4da. suc. fa. as 2nd Visct. Anson 31 July 1818; cr. Earl of Lichfield 15 Sept. 1831.

Offices Held

PC 24 Nov. 1830; master of the King’s buckhounds 1830-4; postmaster gen. 1835-41.

Capt. Staffs. yeoman cav. 1812, maj. 1819, lt.-col. 1829, lt.-col. commdt. 1833.

High steward, Yarmouth 1836-d.

Biography

Anson headed the poll at Yarmouth in 1818, standing on the family interest as a supporter of the Whig opposition. (He was elected to Brooks’s Club on 7 May 1816.) Before he could take his seat he succeeded to the peerage, with an unencumbered estate worth £70,000 p.a. As a riotous youth he had been sentenced to ten days’ imprisonment at Geneva:

He discovered that his imprisonment was nothing more than a confinement, and that he was at liberty to see his friends in prison to any number. He accordingly ordered dinner for 18 or 20 persons daily, and on the third day, one of the municipal authorities of the town visited him and requested him to leave the gaol.

So it went on, as Greville recorded:

a fine fellow, with an excellent disposition, liberal, hospitable, frank and gay, quick and intelligent, without cultivation, extravagant and imprudent, with considerable aptitude for business; between spending and speculating ... he has half ruined a noble estate.

He died 18 Mar. 1854.

Three Early Nineteenth Cent. Diaries ed. Aspinall, 344; Greville Mems. ed. Strachey and Fulford, iii. 6.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: R. G. Thorne

Notes