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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SOU-STE |
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SPENCER COMPTON CAVENDISH , 8th duke (1833-1908), born on the 23rd of July 1833, was the son of the 7th duke (then earl
earl
Cambridge ; in 1856 he was attached to the special mission to Russia for the new tsar's accession; and in 1857 he was returned to parliament as Liberal member for North Lancashire. At the opening of the new parliament of 1859 themarquis of Hartington (as he had now become) moved the amendment to the address which overthrew the government of Lord Derby. In 1863 he became first a lord of the admiralty, and then under-secretary for war, and on the formation of the Russell-Gladstone administration at the death of Lord Palmerston he entered it as war secretary. He retired with his colleagues in July 1866; but upon Mr Gladstone's return to power in 1868 he became postmaster-general, an office which he exchanged in 1871 for that of secretary for Ireland. When Mr Gladstone, after his defeat and resignation in 1894, temporarily withdrew from the leadership of the Liberal party in January 1875, Lord Hartington was chosen Liberal leader in the House
chief
chief
house
interest
standing
opinion forbidden to think of office. Lord Salisbury's offers to serve under him as prime minister (both after the general election, and again when Lord Randolph Churchill resigned) were declined, and Lord Hartington continued to discharge the delicate duties of the leader of a middle party with no less judgment than he had shown when leading the Liberals during the interregnum of 1875-1880. It was not until 1895, when the differences between Conservatives and Liberal Unionists had become almost obliterated by changed circumstances, and the habit of acting together, that the duke of Devonshire, as he had become by the death of his father in 189r, consented to enter Lord Salisbury's third ministry as president of the council. The duke thus wasthe nominal representative of education in the cabinet at a time when educational questions were rapidly becoming of great importance; and his own technical knowledge of this difficult and intricate question being admittedly superficial, a good deal of criticism from time to time resulted. He had however by this time an established position in public life, and a reputation for weight of character, which procured for him universal respect and confidence, and exempted him from bitter attack, even from his most determined political opponents. Wealth and rank combined with character to place him in a measure above party; and his succession to his father as chancellor of the university of Cambridge in 1892 indicated his eminence in the life of the country. In the same year he had married the widow of the 7th duke of Manchester.Ile continued to hold the office of lord president of the council till the 3rd of October 1903, when he resigned on account of differences with Mr Balfour (q.v.) over the latter's attitude towards free trade. As Mr Chamberlain had retired from the cabinet, and the duke had not thought it necessary to join Lord George Hamilton and Mr Ritchie in resigning a fortnight earlier, the defection was unanticipated and was sharply criticized by Mr Balfour, who, in the rearrangement of his ministry, had only just appointed the duke's nephew and heir , Mr Victor Cavendish, to be secretary to the treasury. But the duke had come to the conclusion that while he himself was substantially a free-trader,' Mr Balfour did not mean the same thing by the term. He necessarily became the leader of the Free Trade Unionists who were neither Balfourites nor Chamberlainites, and his weight was thrown into the scale against any association of Unionism with the constructive policy of tariff reform, which he identified with sheer Protection. A struggle at once began within the Liberal Unionist organization between those who followed the duke and those who followed Mr Chamberlain (q.v.) ; but the latter were in the majority and a reorganization in the Liberal Unionist Association took place, the Unionist free-traders seceding and becoming a separate body. The duke then became president of the new organizations, the Unionist Free Food League and the Unionist Free Trade Club. In the subsequent developments the duke played a dignified but somewhat silent part, and the Unionist rout in 1906 was not unaffected by his open hostility to any taint of compromise with the tariff reform movement
The head of an old and powerful family, a wealthy territorial magnate, and an Englishman with thoroughly national tastes for sport, his weighty and disinterested character made him a statesman of the first rank in his time, in spite of the absence of showy or brilliant qualities. He had no self-seeking ambitions, and on three occasions preferred not to become prime minister. Though his speeches were direct and forcible, he was not an orator, nor " clever "; and he lacked all subtlety of intellect; but he was conspicuous for solidity of mind and straightforwardness of action, and for conscientious application as an administrator, whether in his public or private life. The fact that he once yawned in the middle of a speech of his own was commonly quoted as characteristic; but he combined a great fund of common sense and knowledge of the average opinion with a patriotic sense of duty towards the state. Throughout his career he remained an old-fashioned Liberal, or rather Whig, of a type which in his later years was becoming gradually more and more rare.There was no issue of his marriage, and he was succeeded as 9th duke by his nephew VICTOR CHRISTIAN CAVENDISH (b. 1868), who had been Liberal Unionist member for West Derbyshire since 1891, and was treasurer of the household (1900 to 1903) and' His own words to Mr Balfour at the time were: " I believe that our present system of free imports is on the whole the most advantageous to the country, though I do not contend that the principles on which it rests possess any such authority or sanctity as to forbid any departure from it, for sufficient reasons." financial secretary to the treasury (19(33 to 1905); in 1892 he married a daughter of the marquess of Lansdowne, by whom he had two sons. (H. CH.) End of Article: SPENCER COMPTON CAVENDISH If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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