DOUGLAS, John (1774-1838), of Newmarket Palace, Cambs.

In 1826, when Douglas’s ‘anxious desire to be restored to Parliament’ was ‘all at an end’, the earl of Westmorland sympathized and paid him the compliment ‘that ministers had not a steadier attendant to their interests than myself proved to be the eight or nine years I had served’. Rutland mss (History of Parliament Aspinall transcripts), Douglas to Rutland, 16 June [1826]. The son and heir of a wealthy Lincolnshire landowner with estates in Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Flint, Lanarkshire and Middlesex and investments in the Lancashire cotton industry, Douglas established himself as a courtier and connoisseur of the horse racing at Newmarket. He was brought in for Orford by the 2nd marquess of Hertford in 1818 (and again in 1820) as a personal favour to George IV as regent, to whom his brother-in-law Benjamin Bloomfield† was private secretary from 1817 to 1822. HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 221-2, 609; Cheshire and Chester Archives DHL/67/1.

An anti-Catholic Tory, who is not known to have spoken in debate, Douglas divided with Lord Liverpool’s government on revenue collection, 4 July 1820, their handling of the Queen Caroline affair, 6 Feb., and the additional malt duty, 3 Apr. 1821. He voted against Catholic relief, 28 Feb. 1821. He resigned in April to make way for the foreign secretary Lord Castlereagh and was rewarded a year later, possibly as a parting concession to Bloomfield, by being returned on the Fownes Luttrell interest for Minehead, where Hertford’s retirees were welcome paying guests. Arbuthnot Jnl. i. 136-8, 149-53. He again divided against Catholic relief, 30 Apr. 1822, 1 Mar., 21 Apr., 10 May 1825, and voted against the Irish franchise bill, 26 Apr. 1825. He voted against Scottish parliamentary reform, 2 June 1823, 26 Feb. 1824. (On 23 Apr. 1831, writing to the 5th duke of Rutland, he expressed his disapproval of the ‘accursed reform bill, not but I am of opinion that a something was necessary, but not of so sweeping a tendency’.) Rutland mss. He voted against inquiring into Irish tithes, 19 June 1822, and divided with ministers on the revenue and retrenchment, 28 June 1822, 13, 18 Mar. 1823, the Foreign Enlistment Act, 25 Feb. 1823, and the prosecution of the Dublin Orange rioters, 24 Mar., 22 Apr. 1823. His votes for the duke of Cumberland’s annuity bill, 6, 10 June, and against the spring guns bill, 17 June 1825 were the last recorded for him. He was disappointed to be left without a seat at the dissolution in 1826 and, although ‘not altogether bereft of distant hope that he [Hertford] yet will seat me in some one of his double returns when Parliament meets’, he went to Sweden, where Bloomfield and his son had accepted diplomatic postings. Ibid. Douglas to Rutland, 16 June [1826].

Gambling losses, largely accruing from his turf accounting activities at Newmarket - Douglas laid the blame on ‘Peel and Huskisson ... tampering with the currency’, problems raising capital from his property and ‘keeping too large establishment of servants’ - had reduced his fortune and conspired to keep him in Sweden until 1835, outstaying Hertford’s mission (1827) and Bloomfield, who departed in 1828, leaving his son in charge. Ibid. same to same, 7 Mar. 1829, 23 Apr. 1831, 23 Sept. 1832, 11 Mar. 1834. Douglas was refused a pension or diplomatic salary. Ibid. same to same, 12 Mar., 10 May 1830. The commissioners of woods and forests had terminated his tenancy at Newmarket Palace in 1831, and on his return he made his home with his cousin, John Hargreave Douglas of Gyrn Castle, Llanasa, Flintshire, where he died in August 1838. Ibid. same to same, 26 Mar., 23 Apr. 1831, 11 Mar. 1834, 8 Nov. 1835; Chester Chron. 10 Aug. 1838. By his holograph will, dated 6 Feb. 1836 and sworn under £6,000, 6 Mar. 1839, he bequeathed his property to his nephew and residuary legatee John Arthur Douglas Bloomfield (1802-79), then chargé d’affaires at Stockholm, and provided annuities for the widow and children of his late servant John May, ‘believed to be in Sweden’. A case of non-execution brought against Bloomfield’s co-executor ‘Douglas of Gyrn’ and others in 1844 was abandoned as ‘bad’, after financial ruin forced the Douglas family to sell the Gyrn estate in April 1853. PROB 11/1908/152, IR26/1509/170; The Times, 11 Dec. 1844, 2 Apr. 1853.