Lord Derby's first Government began on February 27, 1852, and ended in the following December. During that short period the Viceroy of Ireland was Lord Eglinton and Winton, a nobleman who is best remembered as the promoter of the Eglinton tournament, an attempt to revive the old-time glory of the age of chivalry. This freak cost him £40,000, a small sum to one possessed of great wealth, a fact he made evident throughout his stay in Dublin. His lavish entertainments created a new era in viceregal hospitality. Lord Eglinton was essentially what may be described as a sportsman, using the term in the old sense, and not as it is now understood. His racing stable was about the largest and most successful in England, and during the forty-nine years (1812-61) he lived, he helped to enliven the crowd. He was devoted to sport, and some surprise was expressed when he agreed to govern Ireland, but he liked the country, and in 1858, on Lord Derby's return, he went back to Dublin, but within sixteen months he resigned, and in June, 1859, it became necessary to find a successor. He was scarcely interested in politics, though in 1854 he moved a resolution in the Lords asking for a commission to inquire into the working of the Board of Education in Ireland. During his second viceroyalty he married again—the first Lady Eglinton having died in 1853—and for a few months a daughter of the Earl of Essex acted as the hostess of Dublin Castle and the Viceregal Lodge. Personally untouched by the political difficulties of the country, Lord Eglinton had the merit of realizing the hopelessness of trying to solve Irish problems, and he did more good with his lavish dinners than the well-meaning Clarendon had with his painstaking investigations into, and midnight studies of, what are termed, for want of a better name, 'Irish affairs.' He was given the United Kingdom peerage of Winton—an earldom—on his retirement from Ireland, the grateful ministry thus acknowledging his popularity as a sportsman, and helping us to remember that he won the St. Leger three times and the Derby once.
Political affairs having terminated Lord Eglinton's first viceroyalty towards the close of 1852, Lord Aberdeen, the Prime Minister, appointed the Earl of St. Germans to Ireland. It was yet another attempt to meet the criticism that English statesmen and Irish viceroys were absolutely ignorant of and indifferent to Irish problems. Lord St. Germans was fifty-four, and for some years—1841 to 1845—had been Chief Secretary for Ireland. He was a man of ability and courage, and as the author of the Eliot Convention taught the participants in the Carlist rising in Spain something of the decencies of warfare. As Chief Secretary for Ireland, his time had been spent in dealing with the numerous petty rebellions and their leaders; he introduced a Bill to restrict the sale of firearms and the importation of ammunition; the Government found it unacceptable, and Eliot went out of office to be given the Postmaster-Generalship by Peel, and later the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland.
Lord St. Germans married in 1824 a grand-daughter of the first Marquis Cornwallis, and both became intimate friends of the royal family. In 1853 Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort visited Dublin to open the great International Exhibition, and, of course, they were enthusiastically welcomed by the whole of the country. Lord and Lady St. Germans took the lead in a splendid series of festivities that celebrated the visit of the queen. Political motives may have suggested the visit, but in all probability the anxiety of Her Majesty to see Ireland again was not lessened by the fact that her friend was the viceroy.
The Earl of Carlisle
St. Germans' retirement in 1855 to become Lord Steward and confidant of the queen until his death, at the age of seventy-nine, in 1877, was followed by Lord Carlisle's first term of office. As Lord Morpeth he had been Chief Secretary for more than six years—1835-41—the post having been given him because it was his amendment to the address that turned out the Peel administration in the spring of 1835. Lord Morpeth, as he was known during the twenty odd years he sat in Parliament, was the most workmanlike minister of his generation. With the assistance of Thomas Drummond, his under-secretary, he framed the Irish Tithe Bill, the Irish Municipal Reform Bill, and the Irish Poor Law Bill; and, although hampered by the House of Lords and by the fact that he was regarded as Lord Melbourne's hostage for good behaviour to Daniel O'Connell, he was a most successful Chief Secretary in a time when success was very dearly bought. He was, therefore, essentially a safe man when he became viceroy on the nomination of Lord Palmerston in February, 1855. He held the post until October, 1864, with the exception of the sixteen months occupied by Lord Eglinton's second viceroyalty, between February, 1858, and June, 1859.
It is not possible to say that any Viceroy of Ireland has been successful, because there is no such thing as pleasing the numerous parties into which the democracy and aristocracy of the country is divided, but Lord Carlisle went as near success as any human being could. A fine statue by J. H. Foley, erected in Phoenix Park in 1870, is evidence of the popularity of George William Frederick Howard, seventh Earl of Carlisle. He was an emancipationist when it was dangerous to confess to such ultra-Liberalism, and his speech when introducing the Irish Tithe Bill in the House of Commons in 1835—he was but thirty-three—remains one of the best speeches by an Englishman on Irish affairs. He took a genuine interest in the welfare of the country, and did his best. The 'patriots' denounced him as a tool of a tyrannical Government; the few that made his personal acquaintance discovered a scholarly nobleman with the most amiable manner in the world. He never married, and consequently did not entertain on the same lavish and indiscriminate scale as his predecessors, but Dublin Castle was all the better for its acquaintance with the eminent persons the viceroy dined and wined there. Another visit of the Queen and Prince Albert, inspired by the fact that the Prince of Wales was quartered with his regiment at the Curragh, was a feature of Lord Carlisle's term.
There were, of course, the usual political agitations, and although the Smith O'Brien rising had collapsed ignominiously, a new force in Irish affairs came into existence about the time that Lord Carlisle was concluding his first viceroyalty. The Irish in America had begun to take a practical interest in Irish affairs. They subscribed large sums of money to aid the cause of Irish independence, and for six years, beginning with 1858, great preparations were made for the striking of the decisive blow. James Stephens and others founded the Fenian organization described by Mr. Gladstone as having its root in Ireland and its branches in the United States. During the latter months of Lord Carlisle's viceroyalty there were one or two small attempts on the part of the Fenians to make themselves prominent, but it was not until Lord Wodehouse was in power at Dublin Castle that English ministers realized the gravity of the new situation created by Stephens and his friends. Lord Carlisle's resignation was brought about by ill-health, and in October, 1864, he left Ireland, to die before the close of the year. It illustrates the viceroy's position in social and literary circles to recall the fact that when the country celebrated in 1864 the tercentenary of the birth of William Shakespeare, Lord Carlisle should be selected to preside over the festivities at Stratford-on-Avon.