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The reform of the undertaker system: Anglo-Irish politics, 1750–67

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Martyn J. Powell
Martyn J. Powell*
Affiliation:
Department of History and Welsh History, University of Wales, Aberystwyth
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Extract

Thomas Bartlett, in his Ph.D. thesis of 1979 and subsequent articles, highlighted deficiencies in the accepted interpretation of the administration of Lord Townshend. Bartlett challenged the widely held view that the constant residency of the Irish lord lieutenant was imposed by order of the British government. He argued that the decision was taken by Townshend himself and that it was unconnected with the meeting of George Grenville’s cabinet in February 1765, when it was determined that constant residency should be imposed at the earliest possible opportunity. Moreover, Bartlett rejected the existence of a linear approach to policy-making by the British government. He contended that constant residency was the result of opportunism and not evolution of policy.

The significance of the alteration to the lord lieutenant’s period of residence lay in the challenge it posed to the undertaker system. Constant residency promised centralisation of British authority and the erosion of the power wielded by the Irish magnates. The undertaker system was sustained by the effective distribution of patronage to a select few members of the higher echelons of the Irish gentry — men who transformed this patronage along with their own status and power at borough level into control over blocs of M.P.s in the Irish House of Commons. These blocs were transferred to the support of the lord lieutenant in order to facilitate the passing of government legislation. J. L. McCracken argued that this system emerged as the most suitable method of controlling parliament after the Wood’s Halfpence crisis of the early 1720s. However, subsequent research by David Hayton refuted this claim, arguing that a recognisable form of the undertaker system existed in Ireland before this episode.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 121 , May 1998 , pp. 19 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1998

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References

1 Bartlett, Thomas, ‘The Townshend viceroyalty, 1767–72’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Queen’s University, Belfast, 1976)Google Scholar (henceforth Bartlett, ‘Townshend viceroyalty’); idem, ‘The Townshend viceroyalty, 1767–72’ in Bartlett, Thomas and Hayton, D. W. (eds), Penal era and golden age: essays in Irish history, 1690–1800 (Belfast, 1979), pp 88–112 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Viscount Townshend and the Irish Revenue Board’ in R.I.A. Proc., lxxix (1979), sect. C, pp 153–75.

2 Grenville cabinet minutes, 1 Feb. 1765 (Additional Grenville papers, 1763–1765, ed. Tomlinson, J.R.G. (Manchester, 1962), pp 335-6)Google Scholar.

3 McCracken, J.L., ‘The undertakers in Ireland and their relations with the lords lieutenant, 1726–1777’ (unpublished M.A. thesis, Queen’s University, Belfast, 1941), ch. 2Google Scholar.

4 Hayton, D. W., ‘The beginnings of the undertaker system’ in Bartlett, & Hayton, (eds), Penal era & golden age, pp 32–54 Google Scholar.

5 J. L. McCracken briefly looked at the Townshend administration and earlier changes in the Irish viceroyalty in his ‘The Irish viceroyalty, 1760–73’ in Cronne, H.A., Moody, T.W. and Quinn, D.B. (eds), Essays in British and Irish history in honour of James Eadie Todd (London, 1949), pp 152–68 Google Scholar.

6 [Stone] to George Dodington, 26 May 1752 (H.M.C., Stopford-Sackville, i, 183).

7 Stone to Newcastle, [25 Oct. 1754] (P.R.O.N.I., Stopford-Sackville papers, T2789/1).

8 Bp Ryder to Sir Dudley Ryder, 15 Aug. 1750 (P.R.O.N.I., Harrowby papers, T3228/1/51). Chesterfield held the post of lord lieutenant 1745–6.

9 O’Donovan, Declan, ‘The money bill dispute of 1753’ in Bartlett, & Hayton, (eds), Penal era & golden age, p. 87 Google Scholar.

10 Stone to Newcastle, 26 May 1752 (‘The correspondence of Archbishop Stone and the duke of Newcastle’, ed. Falkiner, C. Litton, in E.H.R., xx (1905), pp 513-15)Google Scholar; Stone to Henry Pelham, 25 July 1752 (H.M.C., Stopford-Sackville, i, 184-6)Google Scholar; Stone to Andrew Stone, 27 July 1752 (ibid., p. 186); Stone to Newcastle, 25 Aug. 1753 (‘Stone-Newcastle corr.’, pp 517–18).

11 Dr Henry to Abp Herring, 21 Dec. 1753 (B.L., Hardwicke papers, Add. MS 35592, f. 230).

12 Ryder’s diary, 24 Mar. [1754] (P.R.O.N.I., Harrowby papers, T3228/1/65).

13 Dorset to Newcastle, 5 Feb. 1754 (‘Stone–Newcastle corr.’, p. 742).

14 Ibid.

15 Dorset to Sackville, 27 Mar. 1754 (H.M.C., Stopford-Sackville, i, 209)Google Scholar.

16 McCracken, ‘The undertakers in Ireland’, p. 181.

17 Ibid.

18 Stone to Newcastle, 27 Apr. 1754 (‘Stone–Newcastle corr.’, pp 744–5); McCracken, ‘The undertakers in Ireland’, p. 181.

19 Countess of Kildare to Kildare, 22 May 1755 (The correspondence of Emily, duchess of Leinster, 1731–1814, ed. Fitzgerald, Brian (3 vols, Dublin, 1949-57), i, 23)Google Scholar.

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21 Hartington to Devonshire, 23 May 1755 (P.R.O.N.I., Chatsworth papers, T3158/681).

22 Devonshire to Hartington, 8 [May/June] 1755 (ibid., T3158/705).

23 Hartington to Devonshire, 30 July 1755 (ibid., T3158/796b).

24 Conway to Hartington, 23 Aug. 1755 (copy in Wilmot’s hand) (ibid., Wilmot papers, T3019/2658).

25 Conway to Hartington, 17 Aug. 1755 (ibid., Chatsworth papers, T3158/825).

26 Conway to Hartington, 23 Aug. 1755 (copy) (ibid., Wilmot papers, T3019/2658).

27 Fox to Hartington, 8 June 1755 (Henry Fox, first Lord Holland, his family and relations, ed. earl of Ilchester, (2 vols, London, 1920), ii, 76)Google Scholar.

28 Hartington succeeded to the title of duke of Devonshire upon the death of his father in December 1755.

29 In an important article, building on the work of Sir Herbert Butterfield, Jonathan Clark examined Anglo-Irish politics during the period 1754–6, treating Britain and Ireland as a single entity. Clark was not concerned with Britain’s Irish policy as part of a process of imperial consolidation; rather, he was interested in the symbiotic relationship between British and Irish politics and politicians. Clark argued that ‘many of the long-term developments in English politics can be found echoed in Dublin in such a way as to suggest that it was very often the Irish example which served as the unacknowledged precedent for English innovations’. For example, the failure of Dorset’s dismissals encouraged Newcastle to work towards forging a broad-bottomed administration in Britain, and the purchase of the loyalty of the Irish ‘patriots’ left many British politicians convinced that patriotism, in England and Ireland, was a guise easily abandoned. Generally Clark’s conclusions do not challenge the premise of this article. Indeed although he argued that the events of the 1760s, rather than the Dorset and Hartington administrations, provided the antecedents to Townshend’s Castle party, there is no reason why the 1750s and 1760s cannot be seen as part of a wider evolutionary process in Britain’s Irish policy. See Clark, J.C.D., ‘Whig tactics and parliamentary precedent: the English management of Irish politics, 1754–1756’ in Hist. Jn., xxi (1978), pp 275–301 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Countess of Kildare to Kildare, 19 May [1757] (Leinster corr., i, 35)Google Scholar.

31 Countess of Kildare to Kildare, 27 May 1757 (ibid., p. 39). See also countess of Kildare to Kildare, 28 June [1757] (ibid., p. 56).

32 Bedford to Pitt, 9 Feb. 1758 (P.R.O., SP 63/415/242-5).

33 Bedford to Pitt, 4 Jan. 1758 (ibid., SP 63/415/178-82).

34 Notes and appointments made in Bedford’s almanac, 6 Mar. 1758 (Woburn Abbey, Bedford MSS, HMC 70, ii).

35 Quoted in Clark, ‘Whig tactics and parliamentary precedent’, p. 300.

36 Yorke to Hardwicke, 15 June 1758 (B.L., Hardwicke papers, Add. MS 35595, f. 214).

37 Gentleman’s Magazine, xxix (1759), Supplement, p. 638.

38 Walpole, Horace, Memoirs of the reign of George II, ed. Brooke, John (3 vols, New Haven & London, 1985), iii, 86 Google Scholar.

39 Shannon to Dennis, [Mar.–Apr. 1761] (P.R.O.N.I., Shannon papers, D2707/A1/5/43).

40 Hamilton to Hely-Hutchinson, 26 June 1762 (H.M.C. rep. 12, app. 9, p. 232).

41 Hamilton to Hely-Hutchinson, 2 Aug. 1762 (ibid., p. 234).

42 Hamilton to Hely-Hutchinson, 10 Nov. 1762 (ibid., p. 239).

43 Ibid.

44 Eulie, J.A., ‘Politics and administration in Ireland, 1760–66’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Fordham University, New York, 1965), p. 124 Google Scholar.

45 Halifax to Egremont, 19 Feb. 1762 (Cal. H.O. papers, i, 159)Google Scholar.

46 Parliamentary diary of James Harris, 25 Nov. – 4 Dec. 1761 (Hampshire Record Office, Malmesbury MSS, 9M73/G708).

47 Although Hardwicke no longer held a government office, he remained in the cabinet.

48 Hardwicke to Egremont, 3 Mar. 1762 (P.R.O., Egremont papers, 30/47/27).

49 Halifax to Egremont, 23 Dec. 1761 (Cal. H.O. papers, i, 89–90)Google Scholar.

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51 Egremont to Halifax, 27 Feb. 1762 (Cal. H.O. papers, i, 159)Google Scholar.

52 This increased the lord lieutenant’s annual salary from £12,000 to £16,000.

53 Egremont to Halifax, 20 Mar. 1762 (Cal. H.O. papers, i, 167)Google Scholar.

54 Kildare to countess of Kildare, 20 Apr. 1762 (Leinster corr., i, 119)Google Scholar.

55 McCracken, ‘The undertakers in Ireland’, pp 292–3; James, F.G., Ireland in the Empire, 1688–1770 (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), pp 267-8Google Scholar; Kelly, James, Prelude to union: Anglo-Irish politics in the 1780s (Cork, 1992), p. 18 Google Scholar.

56 Present at this meeting were the duke of Bedford, Lord Gower, Lord Sandwich, Lord Marchmont, Lord Egmont, Lord Northington, Lord Halifax, Lord Northumberland and George Grenville, 1 Feb. 1765 (Add. Grenville papers, pp 335–6).

57 Richard Boyle to ———, 6 Oct. 1764 (N.L.I., Shannon papers, MS 13300/81).

58 Hamilton to Hely-Hutchinson [incorrectly dated as 2 Dec. 1769] (H.M.C. rep. 8, pt l, app. l, p. 191).

59 Freeman’s Journal, i, no. 85 (26-30 June 1764), p. 337.

60 Bartlett, ‘Townshend viceroyalty’, p. 21.

61 Ponsonby to Anthony Foster, 15 Aug. 1765 (P.R.O.N.I., Foster–Massereene papers, D562/1/757).

62 Bartlett, ‘Townshend viceroyalty’, p. 34.

63 Abp Ryder to Sir Dudley Ryder, 15 Mar. 1766 (P.R.O.N.I., Harrowby papers, T3228/2/11).

64 Bristol to Chatham, 29 Dec. 1766 (Correspondence of William Pitt, earl of Chatham, ed. Taylor, W.S. and Pringle, J.H. (4 vols, London, 1838-9), iii, 147)Google Scholar.

65 Waite to Wilmot, 18 Sept. 1766 (Derbyshire Record Office, Wilmot papers, D3155/WH3469).

66 Fraser to Townshend, 28 June 1769 (N.A.I., Townshend MSS, M733/24).

67 Bessborough to Ponsonby, 3 June 1767 (Correspondence of King George III, ed. SirFortescue, John (6 vols, London, 1927-8), i, 484-6)Google Scholar; Bartlett, ‘Townshend vice-royalty’, p. 30.

68 George III to Chatham, 22 Aug. 1766 (Chatham corr., iii, 51)Google Scholar.

69 Hervey to Grenville, 13 Aug. 1766 (P.R.O.N.I., Bristol papers, T2960/1/5).

70 Pery to Robert Fitzgerald, 11 Sept. 1766 (quoted in Bartlett, ‘Townshend vice-royalty’, p. 23).

71 Thomas, P.D.G., British politics and the stamp act crisis (Oxford, 1975), pp 291-2Google Scholar.

72 Ibid., p. 291.

73 Waite to Wilmot, 7 Feb. 1767 (Derbyshire Record Office, Wilmot papers, D3155/WH3471).

74 George III to Chatham, 25 Sept. 1766 (Chatham corr., iii, 74)Google Scholar.

75 Pery to Robert Fitzgerald, 11 Sept. 1766 (quoted in Bartlett, Townshend vice-royalty’, p. 23).

76 Gentleman’s Magazine, xxxvi (30 Sept. 1766), p. 438.

77 Waite to ———, 4 Sept. 1766 (H.M.C. rep. 12, app. 9, p. 259).

78 I would like to thank the earl of Harrowby, the Trustees of the Bedford Settled Estates, the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, the earl of Malmesbury, Hampshire Record Office, Suffolk Record Office, Derbyshire Record Office, Northamptonshire Record Office, the Viscount Massereene and Ferrard and the Deputy Keeper of the Records of Northern Ireland for permission to cite and quote from manuscripts in their possession.