Author: Holford, George Peter
Biography:
HOLFORD, George Peter (1767-1839: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised in late Oct. 1767 at St. Giles in the Fields, Holborn, the second son of Peter Holford, Master in Chancery, and his wife Ann Nutt, who had married in Camberwell, South London, in 1752. He was educated at Harrow and St. John’s College, Cambridge (matric. 1784, BA 1788, MA 1791). He was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1784 and called to the bar on 12 July 1791. He was an MP for various constituencies 1803-26 and was Secretary of the Board of Control 1804-6 and 1807-10. A wealthy and complex man with conservative views and evangelical zeal yet active in philanthropy and prison reform, he was Castlereagh’s executor after his suicide and the connection made him unwelcome in liberal circles. Maria Edgeworth, however, thought he was “a man of large fortune who uses it for benevolent purposes” (Letters, 270). He was Governor of the recently established Millbank Penitentiary (1816) which operated as a holding centre for convicts prior to transportation, and wrote extensively on the subject, arguing for the reform of prisoners through prison management and religion so they could be spared transportation. His pamphlets were published by the Philanthropic Society, of which he was vice-president. He also supplemented his prose accounts of the Millbank Penitentiary with the poem listed here. His other verse and drama, patriotic and religious, is probably of less interest to modern readers and his religious prose works, The Destruction of Jerusalem (1805) and A Brief Account of the Bible (1835) are no longer read. He married Anne Daniel (c.1776-1849) on 15 Dec. 1802 at St. Clement Danes, The Strand, London. They had two sons and two daughters. He died at Grosvenor Square, London, 30 April 1839, and was buried in the family vault at Westonbirt. His unmarried brother, Robert, had died the previous year and left his vast fortune of over £1,000,000 to George Peter’s eldest son, Robert Stayner Holford. (historyofparliamentonline.org; ancestry.co.uk 5 Feb. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 5 Feb. 2022; Maria Edgeworth, Letters from England 1813-1844, ed. C. Colvin [1971]; Morning Chronicle 16 Dec. 1802, 2 May 1839; Hampshire Advertiser 25 Aug. 1838; Bath Chronicle 29 Mar. 1849; “Holford, Robert Stayner,” ODNB 5 Feb. 2022) AA
Other Names:
- G. Holford