Bramston, the possessor of a ‘talismanic name’ in Essex, represented the southern division of his native county for three decades.
Bramston, who initially pursued an academic career as a fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, improved his own financial standing through marriage to Elizabeth Harvey, daughter and co-heir of Sir Eliab Harvey, who had commanded the Temeraire at Trafalgar, and sat for Maldon, 1780-84, and Essex, 1802-12, 1820-30. On Harvey’s death in 1830, they inherited the manor of Abbess Roding, near Harlow.
Bramston offered for Essex South at the 1835 general election. At the nomination his local pedigree was generously praised by his proposer, William Cotton, who declared that ‘he was born among us; we have watched him from his birth to this moment; and we have found him anxiously engaged in everything relating to the county and county business’.
Despite his long parliamentary career, Bramston never fully established himself in the Commons chamber, making only short and infrequent interventions in debate. He did, however, make important contributions to the business of the House, serving on a great number of select committees, an environment in which he proved to be an assiduous and perceptive questioner of witnesses. In his first Parliament he was appointed to select committees on printed papers, the trade in corn with the Channel Islands and the highway rates bill.
Bramston was unwavering in his defence of agricultural protection at the 1841 general election, warning against the dangers of a fixed duty on corn and asserted that he was ‘not one of those who are gulled by specious motions of free trade’.
Bramston initially remained loyal to Peel on commercial and religious matters, voting with the premier on the ecclesiastical courts bill, 28 Apr. 1843, sugar duties, 14 June 1844, the dissenters’ chapels bill, 28 June 1844, and the Maynooth grant, 19 July 1844, though he opposed him on the factories bill by voting against defining ‘night’ as 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., 18 Mar. 1844. He supported the permanent endowment of Maynooth College, 18 Apr. and 21 May 1845, but, surprisingly, was one of the 46 MPs who voted against the colleges (Ireland) bill, 2 June 1845. He voted against Peel’s repeal of the corn laws at the critical second and third reading, 27 Mar. 1846, 15 May 1846, and against Peel in support of the factories bill, 22 May 1846, but voted with the premier in support of Irish coercion, 25 June 1846.
On the eve of the 1847 general election a leading article in the Conservative-supporting Essex Standard strongly rebuked Bramston for his votes in favour of the 1844 dissenters’ chapels bill and the 1845 Maynooth college bill, stating:
on all the essentially Conservative questions, [he] has as effectually supported the enemies of constitutional principles as if ... he had, at the time of his election, mounted the Yellow cockade of the Whig-Radical party.
Essex Standard, 9 July 1847.
The newspaper went on to condemn his ‘gross misapplication of the representative trust’.
Bramston’s early votes in his fourth Parliament reflected his recently-found desire to be seen as a zealous defender of the established church. He voted against the Roman Catholic relief bill, 8 Dec. 1847, and the Jewish disabilities bill, 17 Dec. 1847. His continuing suspicion of free trade was evident when he opposed the repeal of the navigation laws, 23 Apr. 1849, and supported a motion to reconsider the corn laws, 14 May 1850. He consistently backed motions to consider agricultural distress and voted for the repeal of the malt tax, 8 May 1851. He was appointed chair of the 1848 Horsham election petition committee.
Although Bramston supported Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1853, the defeat of which caused the collapse of Derby’s short-lived ministry, he voted for Gladstone’s alternative fiscal policy, 2 May 1853, and thereafter endorsed Aberdeen and Palmerston’s first ministry on most commercial matters. He backed Roebuck’s motion for an inquiry into the condition of the army at Sebastopol, 29 Jan. 1855, but opposed Disraeli’s motion criticising the war, 25 May 1855, and Roebuck’s censure of the cabinet, 19 July 1855. He was in the majority against Disraeli’s motion to abolish income tax in 1860, 23 Feb. 1857. Reflecting his previous committee experience, he was appointed chair of the Chatham, Athlone and Durham election inquiries.
Despite his admiration for Palmerston, Bramston voted for Cobden’s censure motion on the bombardment of Canton, 3 Mar. 1857. At the 1857 general election he explained that the country had been ‘hurried unnecessarily into a war by the violent and hasty measures of our authorities’.
Bramston generally supported Derby thereafter. He was in the minority against the amendment to the address, 10 June 1859, and consistently opposed the abolition of church rates. He voted for Disraeli’s censure of government policy on the Schleswig-Holstein question, 8 July 1864. He made very brief interventions to debates on the artillery ranges bill, 2 June 1862, and the Roach river fishery bill, 8 June 1865, but, as had been the case throughout his career, he declined to comment on the major issues of the day. He was appointed to select committees on the board of admiralty, the Thames embankment, standing orders and the Piccadilly and Park Lane new road bill.
Bramston died at his London residence, 30 Eccleston Square, in May 1871. The death of his wife, Elizabeth, the previous October, had left him devastated and he had been in poor health for some months.