WALPOLE, Horatio, Lord Walpole (1783-1858), of Wolterton, Norf. and 11 Berkeley Square, Mdx.

The diminutive placeman and former diplomat Lord Walpole, who acquired a reputation as an inveterate gambler, anti-feminist and ‘poseur’, neglectful of his wife, was returned in absentia for King’s Lynn on his father’s interest in 1820, when family illness detained him at Dresden. W. Rye, Later Hist. of Fam. of Walpole of Norf. 33-37; HP Commons, 1790-1820, v. 474-5; Bury and Norwich Post, 8, 15 Mar. 1820. An anti-Catholic Tory for whom no Commons speeches are reported after 1820, he returned to the continent after taking his seat, spent the summer in Italy and informed his friend and fellow diplomat Edward Cromwell Disbrowe*, in Switzerland, that he was taking his family to Vienna for the winter, in order to ‘hear what is going on’ in England, and to shorten his journey to the Commons, when summoned. Recs. of Stirring Times ed. M. Montgomery-Campbell, 276-7. Although ‘Canning’s secession’ made him ‘less inclined’ to do so, he returned for what he envisaged as six weeks in late January 1821 to support Lord Liverpool’s ministry on the Queen Caroline affair and other issues. Ibid. 277-9. He divided with them as required until 13 Mar. 1822, when, probably as a reaction to losing his seat on the India board as a result of the Grenvillite accession, he created a stir by casting a wayward vote for the abolition of one of the joint-postmasterships. Gurney diary, 13 Mar. 1822. He had voted against parliamentary reform, 9 May, and he brought up a petition from King’s Lynn against the poor law amendment bill, 4 June 1821. Recs. of Stirring Times, 277-8; The Times, 5 June 1821. He voted against permitting Catholic peers to take their seats in the House of Lords, 30 Apr. 1822. He was elevated there by his father’s death in June, and returned his brother John for King’s Lynn, where at Michaelmas he became high steward. The Times, 19 June; Norf. Chron. 22, 29 June 1822.

From 1825 financial difficulties induced Orford, who privately had little respect for the Liverpool and Goderich ministries and esteemed Canning (whose corn bill he paired against, 18 June 1827) only as foreign secretary, to seek diplomatic employment. Geo. IV Letters, iii. 1362; Lord Walpole of Wolterton mss 14/48A; 17/4/84 [NRA 43212, pp. 163, 168]; Wellington mss WP1/937/17; 992/5. However, he turned down offers from Canning and the duke of Wellington of a mission to Mexico as unsuitable for his family and, with no alternative forthcoming, he sold his London home and went abroad pending further sales. All Souls, Oxf. Vaughan mss, Orford to Vaughan, 26 July 1827, 3 July 1829; Wellington mss WP1/984/11; 1054/82. His applications on behalf of John also failed. Wellington mss WP1/952/23; 957/21. A lifelong Conservative and leader of the local party in Norfolk, 1846-58 (Conservative ministries never considered him trustworthy and ‘sanguine’ enough for office), he gave Wellington his proxy for Catholic emancipation in 1829, despite continued misgivings, opposed parliamentary reform with his Carlton Club colleagues and harried Lord Grey in the Lords on the French invasion of Belgium and other foreign policy issues, 1831-3, notwithstanding his brother’s preferment during his ministry. Ibid. WP1/998/16; 999/7; 1054/82; 1185/19; 1216/5; Vaughan mss, Orford to Vaughan, 16 Feb., 3 July 1829; Three Diaries, 94, 136, 341; Holland House Diaries, 31; Lord Walpole of Wolterton mss 16/10, 12, 13 [NRA 43212, p. 145], The Times, 19 Nov. 1836, 6 Aug. 1843. He died at Wolterton in December 1858, estranged from his wife (d. 4 Feb. 1859), and was succeeded in his titles and estates by his eldest son Horatio William Walpole (1813-94), Conservative Member for Norfolk East, 1835-37, and a convert to Roman Catholicism. Orford had settled a sum on his putative daughter Wilhelmine in St. Petersburg at her marriage in 1833-4, and his will, dated 7 Apr. 1852, invoked other family settlements and provided generously for his younger sons Henry (1818-76) and Frederick Walpole (1822-76), Conservative Member for Norfolk North, 1868-76. By a codicil of 19 Mar. 1858, he left £2,000 and £1,500 respectively to Miss Charlotte Lait of Regent’s Park and his housekeeper Caroline Anne Biddiscombe. The Times, 31 Dec. 1858; Gent. Mag. (1859), i. 219; Lord Walpole of Wolterton mss 14/4/55 [NRA 43212, pp. 164-5].