Bragge was a contemporary and close friend of Henry Addington at Winchester, followed his political debut with keen interest and in 1788 married his youngest sister. He became Addington’s most intimate associate in public life next to his brother Hiley and, after 1807, owing to Hiley’s incapacity for business, his most constant ally.
In 1790, then a promising barrister on the Oxford circuit, he was made recorder of Monmouth by the 5th Duke of Beaufort and after the general election was brought in by him ‘in the most handsome manner imaginable’ for the boroughs seat in the place of the Marquess of Worcester, who had secured a seat at Bristol. Bragge was preferred to the duke’s second son Charles who was attached to opposition, and was brought in at no expense to himself and on no political condition: though he was assuredly expected to support government, and from Addington’s association with Pitt could be depended on to do so.
In 1796 Bragge succeeded to Lord Worcester’s seat for Bristol with the blessing of the Duke of Beaufort and the concurrence of the latter’s friends there; there was a feeble opposition to him on this occasion and none subsequently, though he came to dread the routine expenses of Bristol elections, especially when his appointments to office required his re-election.
In September 1797 he became counsel to the Board of Control: Pitt claimed ‘little merit’ for his appointment, which Addington had urged, but was glad that it was ‘agreeable’ to him.
When Addington came to power, Bragge was thought of by him for Speaker, but the King apparently objected; he became instead the minister’s chief ally in debate. To quote Canning:
When his faltering periods lag,
Cheer, o cheer him, Brother Bragge.
He was not, however, a talented debater and was happiest when dealing with business he knew and with procedural points, on which he had a reputation for being pettifogging. Nor was he in Addington’s confidence about the peace treaty with France; but in November 1801, he felt ‘the advantage of having married a Princess of the Blood’, when Addington made him treasurer of the navy with ‘a salary of £4,000 paid quarterly, without deduction, and a house’, and a privy councillor. Addington was thought imprudent ‘in giving his brother-in-law, per saltum, such an office’, but he had in fact offered it first to Charles Yorke, and when the latter refused, alleged that ‘the King had desired that Bragge might have the place’. Had Yorke accepted, Bragge was to have succeeded him at the War Office with a salary increased to £3,000. As treasurer, Yorke felt that Bragge would prove ‘a very able and zealous assistant’.
Early in 1802 it was rumoured that he would succeed Mitford as Speaker: Yorke thought he ‘certainly ought to be’, but nothing came of it. He was anxious to maintain good relations between Pitt and Addington and clashed in debate with Canning, 24 Nov. 1802, when the latter tried to emphasize their differences on the terms of peace. Pitt’s friends regarded Bragge, with his ‘floundering and dullness’ as one of the ‘persons accidentally placed in the situations they hold and whom it might be necessary to call upon to give way’, in the event of a coalition. When he gave way, in June 1803, however, it was not to Pitt’s friends, but to Tierney, whose assistance was required by Addington: it involved, to quote Redesdale, ‘the sacrifice of Bragge, who must be recompensed’. He was meanwhile made a member of the Board of Trade and in August replaced Yorke as secretary at war. He had been expected to have this place, or even the presidency of the Board of Control in the place of Castlereagh.
His enemies regarded Bragge as a ‘complete failure’ as secretary at war.
and said that after Addington was out he voted for Pitt’s plan, but in which I think his Majesty was mistaken. He said that Addington pressed Bragge not to follow him, considering his narrow fortune and family, but that Bragge was determined, thinking he could not in honour separate from him, though he had no certainty at that time of possessing above £500 a year. Most fortunately he had at that very juncture fallen into an estate of £4,000 a year; that his Majesty had told the circumstances to Mr Pitt who was so much affected as to cry, professing a very high opinion of Bragge and great pleasure in his having had an opportunity before his fortune fell in of showing the generosity of his character.
Bragge Bathurst, as he now became, did not find his situation as rosy as the above account suggests; Charles Abbot reported more accurately that with ‘nine children and only £1,000 a year’, he had succeeded to the Lydney estate, worth £2,500 a year. Moreover, Bathurst found it encumbered by a heavy mortgage, stripped of timber and in need of repair: so he did not consider himself as an independent country gentleman. In any case, Addington named him among the four friends for whom he was anxious to obtain office as a prerequisite to joining Pitt’s administration in December 1804. The Irish secretaryship and the judge advocateship were available at once, and although Bathurst would not consider the former, Addington hoped he would accept the latter. He informed Addington, 22 Dec., that he feared the expense of a by-election at Bristol on top of his commitments to an encumbered estate and losses while treasurer of the navy: he understood that Nathaniel Bond was interested in the judge advocateship and pointed out that it was a step down for him, having been secretary at war. On 3 Jan. 1805 Addington informed him that the advocateship being out of the question in any case, he hoped the treasurership of the navy or the War Office might be opened for him.
Bathurst was not eager for office at all cost; he had insisted on Lord Buckinghamshire’s pretensions, the most unpromising aspect of Addington’s programme, at the Addingtonian conference at Bath on 18 Dec.; he was content to wait until a suitable opening occurred. Addington tried to hasten this, thinking it ‘very material’ that Bathurst should take office ‘in the first instance’. Before anything could be done for him, he took on the chairmanship of the Gloucestershire quarter sessions and Addington and Pitt proceeded to fall out again after the censure of Melville. Bathurst had hoped that the quarrel might have been less personal and that the union might have lasted until the end of the session and then been dissolved on public grounds. He was embarrassed by the proceedings against Melville: on 1 Mar. he had spoken against renewing the naval commission, and on 8 Apr. he voted against the censure. According to Cobbett’s Political Register, it was Bathurst’s decision not to allow the paymaster Trotter to lodge navy funds at Coutts’s bank, as a political act against Coutts’s brother-in-law Burdett, that led to the alleged embezzlements. At any rate Bathurst informed his brother-in-law that he had no wish to attend any further debates on Melville’s conduct, 27 Apr. Lord Sidmouth (as Addington now was) had informed Bathurst a week before, when he still hoped to maintain the junction with Pitt, that the latter had ‘appeared to acquiesce’ in the notion of Bathurst’s becoming chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. Bathurst’s embarrassment was not lessened by the fact that he had, on 6 Mar. 1805, opposed Sheridan’s motion for the repeal of Pitt’s Additional Force Act, denying Sheridan’s suggestion that Addington’s friends must necessarily support his motion to be consistent with their behaviour in June 1804, and exposing thereby the opportunism of the support he had given Sheridan over the Liskeard election petition in April 1804. Bathurst did however join the committee of investigation into the 11th naval report and attended to support the Addingtonian Bond’s amendment on the mode of prosecution of Melville, 12 June 1805, on which occasion Canning went out of his way to make the breach of Pitt’s friends with those of Addington ‘irreparable’. Bathurst was not, as supposed by some, the author of the pamphlet A plain reply which the breach between the two leaders occasioned: indeed he hoped that Pitt would overcome his resentment in time.
When Sidmouth joined the Grenville ministry formed in January 1806, he informed Bathurst that he had not claimed the War Office for him, in the belief that he would decline it, so he had contented himself with ‘laying a strong claim, which was readily admitted’, on Bathurst’s behalf, to cabinet office for him. Bathurst’s reaction was that in his need for an additional source of income he would not jib at the War Office.
Meanwhile, in May, Sidmouth tried to secure a commissionership of public accounts for Bathurst’s brother William, and in July, after informing Bathurst that Lord Grenville had commended his speech of 24 June in defence of the training bill against Perceval, assured him that the minister would like to see him in office. He advised him to accept the Board of Control if Thomas Grenville vacated it at Fox’s death or, if Lord Buckinghamshire obtained it, to take the Mint, which Lord Charles Spencer might vacate for him. He also tried to secure him a cheaper seat, for Bodmin. Bathurst was ‘particularly adverse’ to the presidency of the Board of Control, and although the King ‘and all at the Horse Guards’ were reported to be eager to have Bathurst at the War Office, it was set aside on the assumption that Whitbread would accept it; so Bathurst took the Mint. He accepted it together with ‘active duty at the cockpit’ in September, but did not take office until the dissolution, so as to save the risk of reelection at Bristol. Lord Charles Spencer made way for him on a promise of compensation and his salary was raised to £4,000 p.a.
Bathurst who proposed Abbot’s continuation as Speaker, 15 Dec. 1806, was probably better suited to that chair than to any other appointment, as his constant interventions on procedural points attest, but it always eluded him. He spoke on behalf of the Grenville ministry to the end, although he disliked their vendetta against John Fenton Cawthorne and was in favour of a gradual, rather than an immediate, abolition of the slave trade, 23 Feb., 6 Mar. 1807. Like his leader, he objected to any pressure on the King over Catholic relief. His Bristol constituents, some of whom mistakenly assaulted him as a friend of Popery, thanked him, on his re-election in May for his defence of the interests of the established church. He had been eager to avoid attendance on Brand’s motion, 9 Apr. 1807, on the pretext of his quarter sessions duties, but Sidmouth had urged him to defend the King. He then made ‘a very able and powerful speech’ against the motion: he also spoke for government against Lyttelton’s motion on 15 Apr. He had been prepared to resist what he called the ‘attacks of disappointed ambition’ made by the outgoing ministry on the occasion.
When Grenville negotiated with Canning shortly before his ministry was dissolved, Bathurst had been mentioned as a suitable candidate for the government of Madras; it is doubtful whether he would have liked it. The new minister, the Duke of Portland, wished him to accept the office of surveyor general of woods and forests; Perceval thought his assistance ‘a tower of strength to any government’. This view was not shared by his former colleague Charles Williams Wynn, who wrote, 12 Mar. 1807, when it was clear that the Sidmouthites would defect on the Catholic question:
The only one among them who could be imagined to be useful in the House of Commons is Bathurst, and his support is so hollow and so constantly founded upon grounds of his own, not only distinct from, but frequently contrary to those of government, that it has hitherto done much more harm than good.
In any case, Bathurst had no intention of taking office without his leader and it was his view that the new ministry would do without Sidmouth as long as they could.
At Sidmouth’s request,
When in October 1809 Perceval’s government made overtures to Lord Grenville and Sidmouth was also approached, no office was offered him, but Bathurst was invited to be secretary at war with a seat in the cabinet, if a coalition materialized. Sidmouth regarded the offer as ‘highly exceptionable’ and, while he was prepared to release Vansittart, vetoed Bathurst’s acceptance, in which the latter acquiesced, 8 Oct. Robert Ward informed Lord Lonsdale, 6 Oct., ‘I have heard that they don’t despair of Bragge Bathurst even without any formal junction with Lord Sidmouth, but to me that is absolutely incomprehensible’. Bathurst was in favour of continued collaboration with the Grenville party in opposition and advised Sidmouth, 30 Nov., not to accept any fresh offers from government without consulting Grenville and Grey, ‘to feel the pulses of these feverish lords’.
Having received an opposition summons for the amendment of the address, 23 Jan. 1810, he took the moderate line agreed on with Sidmouth in the debate, finding that the amendment prejudged administration on the failure of the Walcheren expedition, but insisting that the latter should be called to book. He then voted with government. Yet on 26 Jan., on the same subject, he said that ‘though he had voted on the former night with the majority, he did not look upon himself as thereby fettered as to his vote on this occasion’ and accordingly voted for inquiry into the failure of the expedition. A member of the secret committee of inquiry, on 23 Feb. he supported Whitbread’s motion for the production of Lord Chatham’s correspondence with the King on the expedition; on 5 Mar. he voted and on 30 Mar. both spoke and voted against government on the issue. On the question of Burdett’s breach of privilege, Bathurst, who had defended Sidmouth against Burdett’s insinuations in debate on 26 Jan., was clearly hostile to him, but called for a postponement of the matter, 27 Mar. On 10 Apr. he said Burdett’s imprisonment had answered the House’s purpose. He voted against reform, 21 May. He attended to oppose the abolition of sinecures, 1 June, having been named to the select committee on them and regarding the proposals made as nugatory. A junction of the Sidmouth party with government was again being mooted, and after this speech Charles Williams Wynn informed Thomas Grenville, 2 June, ‘Bragge Bathurst spoke very awkwardly for government in a manner which seemed to confirm the report that he and the Doctor and Lord Buckinghamshire are to replace Ryder, Westmorland and Camden’; but two weeks later Bathurst was writing to his leader to assure him that no honourable arrangement could be made, despite the weakness of government; nor did he relish the trouble involved in securing re-election at Bristol if he took office.
He was, however, again friendly to government in the debates on the Regency, November 1810-January 1811, speaking and voting in their minority of 1 Jan. in defence of the Regency restrictions and thinking highly of Perceval’s performance; Perceval had intended him for the committee to examine the royal physicians and, for the minister’s benefit, he ceded his intended motion ‘taking away the power of dismissal from the Queen’. On 17 Jan. and 25 Feb. he clashed with Whitbread on the issue. When in the spring Sidmouth was reconciled to the notion of a junction with government, Bathurst was spoken of as chancellor of the Exchequer. On 6 June he extricated himself from the embarrassment caused him by the restoration to office of the Duke of York by insisting that he had never intended to debar the duke from it and that it was a matter beyond the competence of the House. If any change of government took place, he was now expected (though short-sighted) to be Speaker.
Meanwhile, in March 1812, after overtures had been made to Bathurst and Vansittart individually in January, Sidmouth was negotiating office with a seat in the cabinet for Bathurst as part of a Sidmouthite junction with Perceval’s administration. The plan was for Bathurst to succeed Rose as treasurer of the navy before the end of the session, as also to his cabinet seat, and subsequently to succeed Ryder in the Home Office: William Wellesley Pole who coveted the same promotion, was appeased by Perceval with the suggestion that ‘Bragge Bathurst, who was a family man, might feel himself very comfortable in the house of the treasurer of the navy, and perhaps might therefore be induced not to change’. Nothing came of the arrangement, but Sidmouth informed his brother Hiley, 23 Apr., that Bathurst ‘would have succeeded Ryder and I think it probable would have been chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, but this is mere conjecture’. He obtained no more than the duchy office and a seat in the cabinet, in June, under the administration of Lord Liverpool, which he defended against opposition at its inception, 11 June. The anxiety of reelection at Bristol was obviated by Bathurst’s decision, reached in February, not to offer himself there again; Sidmouth’s friend Lord de Dunstanville provided him with a safe opening at Bodmin instead.
On 22 June 1812 Bathurst was a prominent critic of Canning’s motion for Catholic relief. Lord FitzHarris informed his father next day: ‘our cause was most miserably argued by its own advocates, excepting Bragge Bathurst who made a sensible speech’. The Duke of Richmond noted that Bathurst and Ryder were the only ‘protestant’ spokesmen belonging to government.
Bathurst’s frequent contributions to debate after 1812 were chiefly routine defences of departmental and government measures. On 24 Mar. 1814 he was given leave to bring in a bill to prevent ‘interested and vexatious actions’ against non-resident clergy; he was said to be ‘making himself an interest with the clergy’, with a view to the reward of a seat ‘for life free of any expense’ for Oxford University: if this was so, he was thwarted.
Bathurst found the defence of the constitution as he understood it a thankless task and in 1818 complained, ‘very spiritedly for a cabinet minister’ of ‘how much influence was lost to the government by the crown being in abeyance’. The tension between the Sidmouthites and the rest of the cabinet led to rumours that he would go out in 1819, but he remained in office until 1823, when on grounds of health he resigned his seat (since 1818 he had come in for Harwich on the Treasury interest). In the meantime, he had reluctantly taken on the additional responsibility, without emolument on his own insistence, of the Board of Control, pending a re-shuffle. Lord Liverpool would not take no for an answer; and it was reported that ‘Bathurst is not much listened to, and is conscious of it’, January 1821. He was rewarded, however, with a pension of £600 a year, to be augmented to £900 a year for Mrs Bathurst and, after her death, divisible between their four children. He died 13 Aug. 1831. It is a matter for speculation whether, had he not been so inextricably tied to his brother-in-law in public life, he would have obtained a higher reputation than that of a pedestrian politician who made a living; but he was, according to Thomas Grenville, a ‘dull statesman’.