RYDER, Dudley, Visct. Sandon (1798-1882).

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

Constituency

Dates

6 July 1819 - 1831
21 Oct. 1831 - 1847

Family and Education

b. 19 May 1798, 1st s. of Dudley Ryder*, 1st Earl of Harrowby, by Lady Susan Leveson Gower, da. of Granville, 1st Mq. of Stafford. educ. by Mrs Braidwood, Hackney 1803-6; by Rev. Hooker, Rottingdean 1806; by Rev. Cross at Latton, nr. Harlow 1807-9; by John Thelwall at 1 Bedford Place, Mdx. 1809; by Rev. Gilbert Beresford at Trowbridge, later at Aylestone, nr. Leicester 1810-15; Christ Church, Oxf. 1816. m. 15 Sept. 1823 at Berne, Lady Frances Stuart, da. of John Stuart, 1st Mq. of Bute, 4s. 2da. suc. fa. as 2nd Earl of Harrowby 26 Dec. 1847; KG 28 June 1859.

Offices Held

Sec. to Board of Control Dec. 1830-May 1831; commr. for building new churches 1845; ecclesiastical commr. 1847-80; PC 31 Mar. 1855; chancellor of duchy of Lancaster Mar.-Dec. 1855; ld. privy seal Dec. 1855-Feb. 1858.

Lt. Staffs. militia 1819, capt. 1826.

Biography

Sandon’s serious childhood speech impediment caused his father to send him to a succession of private schools and tutors, who included John Thelwall, the radical orator of the 1790s turned elocution teacher. In 1814 he accompanied his father on an excursion to Spa.1 When Sandon was 18, John William Ward reported that his stammer had been ‘almost entirely removed’ and that

his father means to bring him into Parliament as soon as he is of age ... [He is] a young man of very pleasing manners, and of a sound and cultivated understanding ... His father, no incompetent judge, says he is a fair Greek and Latin scholar, and from what I have seen of him, I can venture to say that in point of general reading and knowledge, he is very much above the average.2

He was duly returned for the family borough of Tiverton while still at Oxford, where he took a double first. He voted with government, of which his father was a senior member, in favour of the banishment clause of the blasphemous libels bill, 23 Dec. 1819, but evidently did not speak in the House during his first brief session. He died 18 Nov. 1882.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: P. A. Symonds

Notes

  • 1. Reminiscences 2nd Earl of Harrowby, 3-8, 12, 16-17.
  • 2. Letters to Bishop of Llandaff, 149.