Author: Pelham, Henry
Biography:
PELHAM, Henry (1785-1851: ODNB)
There are no recorded extant copies of the thirty-page quarto Ode to the Duchess of Newcastle on her Birthday (1810) but its existence is attested to by circumstantial bibliographies. Only twelve copies were printed. It was written for the Duchess early in their marriage by her young husband, the fourth Duke of Newcastle. It is a pity that the contents are unknown: they might have presented the Duke to the world in a better light than usual. Henry Pelham Fiennes Pelham-Clinton, to give him his full name, was born at Walton, Warwickshire, on 31 Jan. 1785 and baptised at Bartlow, Cambridgeshire, on 25 Mar., son of Thomas Pelham—at that time the Earl of Lincoln—and his wife Anna Maria Stanhope. His father became the third Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne on 22 Feb. 1794 but died on 17 May 1795, when Henry succeeded him. He was educated at Eton. From 1803 to 1806, with his mother and stepfather, he was detained at Tours in France following the resumption of war between England and France. On 18 July 1807 he married an heiress, Georgiana Elizabeth Mundy, at St. Mary’s, Lambeth, Surrey. They had twelve children (including three sets of twins, the last of whom did not survive) but she died in childbirth on 26 Sept. 1822 at their estate of Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire. Newcastle earned a reputation as a hard-line defender of Establishment rights in the House of Lords. He vehemently opposed Parliamentary Reform and Catholic Emancipation, and was the author of two pamphlets on those subjects. (The pseudonym “Orthos [meaning Upright] Pelham” used in a political satire of 1829 included in this list is presumably a tribute to him.) Harsh treatment of tenants led to uprisings against him: in 1831 his stately home, Nottingham Castle, was burnt to the ground. Imprudent investments and purchases of land reduced his fortune and he ended his life estranged from most of his children. He died on 12 Jan. 1851 at Cumber Park and was buried at All Saints, Markham Clinton, on 21 Jan. (ODNB 10 Sept. 2023; ancestry.com 10 Sept. 2023; findmypast.com 10 Sept. 2023; John Martin, Bibliographical Catalogue of Privately Printed Books [1854], 189) HJ