VI

SAMUEL WHITBREAD

The family of Whitbread enjoyed for several generations substantial possessions in North Bedfordshire. They were of the upper middle class, and were connected by marriage with John Howard the Prison-Reformer, whose property near Bedford they inherited. As years went on, their wealth and station increased. Samuel Whitbread, who died in 1796, founded the brewery in Chiswell Street, E.C., which still bears his name, was Member for the Borough of Bedford, and purchased from the fourth Lord Torrington a fine place near Biggleswade, called Southill, of which the wooded uplands supplied John Bunyan, dwelling on the flats of Elstow, with his idea of the Delectable Mountains.

This Samuel Whitbread was succeeded as M.P. for Bedford by a more famous Samuel, his eldest son, who was born in 1758, and married Lady Elizabeth Grey; sister of

"That Earl who taught his compeers to be just,
And wrought in brave old age what youth had planned."

Samuel Whitbread became one of the most active and influential members of the Whig party, a staunch ally of Fox and a coadjutor of Wilberforce in his attack on the Slave Trade. He was closely and unfortunately involved in the affairs of Drury Lane Theatre, and, for that reason, figures frequently in Rejected Addresses. He died before his time in 1815, and his eldest son, William Henry Whitbread, became M.P. for Bedford. This William Henry died without issue, and his nephew and heir was the admirable man and distinguished Parliamentarian who is here commemorated.

Samuel Whitbread was born in 1830, and educated at Rugby, where he was a contemporary of Lord Goschen, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where one of his closest friends was James Payn, the novelist. He married Lady Isabella Pelham, daughter of the third Earl of Chichester. In those days Bedford returned two members, and at the General Election of 1852, which scotched Lord Derby's attempt to revive Protection, "Young Sam Whitbread" was returned as junior Member for the Borough, and at the elections of 1857, 1859, 1865, 1868, 1874, 1880, 1885, 1886, and 1892 he was again elected, each time after a contest and each time at the top of the poll. Had he stood again in 1895, and been again successful, he would have been "Father of the House."

It may be said, without doubt or exaggeration, that Samuel Whitbread was the ideal Member of Parliament. To begin with physical attributes, he was unusually tall, carried himself nobly, and had a beautiful and benignant countenance. His speaking was calm, deliberate, dignified; his reasoning close and strong; and his style, though unadorned, was perfectly correct. His truly noble nature shone through his utterance, and his gentle humour conciliated the goodwill even of political opponents. His ample fortune and large leisure enabled him to devote himself to Parliamentary work, though the interests of his brewery and of his landed estate were never neglected. He was active in all local business, and had a singularly exact knowledge of all that concerned his constituents, their personalities and desires. A man thus endowed was clearly predestined for high office, and, in 1859 Lord Palmerston, who believed in political apprenticeship, made Samuel Whitbread a Lord of the Admiralty. But this appointment disclosed the one weak joint in the young politician's armour. His circulation was not strong enough for his vast height, and sedulous attention to the work of an office, superadded to the normally unwholesome atmosphere of the House of Commons, was more than he could stand. "I cannot," he said, "get a living out of the London air;" and so in 1863, just on the threshold of high preferment, he bade farewell to official ambition and devoted himself thence-forward to the work of a private Member. But the leaders of the Liberal party did not resign such a recruit without repeated efforts to retain him. Three times he refused the Cabinet and twice the Speakership; while every suggestion of personal distinctions or hereditary honours he waved aside with a smile.

The knowledge that these things were so gave Whit bread a peculiar authority in the House of Commons. His independence was absolute and assured. He was, if any politician ever was, unbuyable; and though he was a sound Party man, on whom at a pinch his leaders could rely, he yet seemed to rise superior to the lower air of partisanship, and to lift debate into the atmosphere of conviction. The St. James's Gazette once confessed that his peculiar position in the House of Commons was one of those Parliamentary mysteries which no outsider could understand. He seemed, even amid the hottest controversies, to be rather an arbiter than an advocate. Once Mr. T. W. Russell, in a moment of inspiration, described him as "an umpire, perfectly impartial—except that he never gives his own side out." Whereupon Whitbread, with a quaint half-smile, whispered to the man sitting next to him: "That hit of 'T. W.'s' was not very bad." A singular tribute to Whitbread's influence, and the weight attaching to his counsel, is found in the fact that, in the autumn of 1885, before Mr. Gladstone had announced his conversion to Home Rule, Whitbread was one of the very few people (Goschen was another) to whom he confided his change of view. Of the estimation in which Whitbread was held by his neighbours, even after he had ceased to represent them in Parliament, the present writer once heard a ludicrous, but illuminating, instance. Among the men sentenced to death after the Jameson Raid was one connected by ties of family with Bedford. For a while his kinsfolk could not believe that he was really in danger; but, when ominous rumours began to thicken, one of his uncles said, with an air of grave resolve: "This is becoming serious about my nephew. If it goes on much longer, I shall have to write to Mr. Whitbread."

In the general course of politics Whitbread was a Whig, holding to the great principles of Civil and Religious Liberty, Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform; but he was a Whig with a difference. He stuck to the party after it had been permeated by Gladstonianism, advanced in Liberalism as he advanced in years, and became a convinced Home Ruler. His political prescience, founded on long experience and close observation, was remarkable. Soon after Lord Salisbury's accession to power in the summer of 1895, he said to the present writer: "I fancy that for two or three years the Government will go on quietly enough; and then, when they find their popularity waning, they will pick a quarrel with somebody, and go to war. It is always difficult for an Opposition to attack a Government which is conducting a war, and I think Chamberlain is just the man to take advantage of that difficulty."

In religion Whitbread was an Evangelical of the more liberal type, mistrusting extremes, and always on the friendliest terms with Nonconformists. As regards the affairs of common life, he was a most hospitable and courteous host; a thorough agriculturist, and a keen sportsman. His size and weight debarred him from hunting, but he was a first-rate shot, whether on the moor or in the stubble, and a keen yachtsman. At home and abroad, everywhere and in all things, he was a gentleman of the highest type, genial, dignified, and unassuming. Probity, benevolence, and public spirit were embodied in Samuel Whitbread.