CALVERT, Nicolson (1764-1841), of Hunsdon House, nr. Ware and Furneux Pelham, nr. Bishop’s Stortford, Herts.

Calvert, once a member, with his attractive Irish wife, of the prince of Wales’s set, was by 1820 a respected country gentleman, who had almost entirely rebuilt the Tudor mansion house at Hunsdon. He played no part in the family brewing enterprise, which was carried on by his younger brothers Robert and Charles. Herts. Fams. ed. D. Warrand, 60; VCH Herts. iii. 325; iv. 103. Although nominally independent, he had belonged to Brooks’s since 1807, and had sided with the Whig opposition on most major issues in the 1812 and 1818 Parliaments. At the general election of 1820 he was again returned unopposed for Hertford on the independent interest. County Herald, 11 Mar. 1820.

He divided against government on the civil list, 3, 5, 8 May, and the additional Scottish baron of exchequer, 15 May; but he was in the majority for Wilberforce’s compromise resolution on the Queen Caroline affair, 22 June, and saw no reason for the House to grant Hume’s request for information on the allowances of the royal dukes unless ministers contemplated an increase in that of the duke of York, 7 July 1820. W. Blake, Irish Beauty, 345; The Times, 8 July 1820. On 6 June he got leave to introduce a bill to provide ‘summary punishment’ for trespassers on private land, which became law, 15 July (1 Geo. IV, c. 56). He was an indefatigable committee man. He voted for restoration of Queen Caroline’s name to the liturgy, 23, 26 Jan., when he presented a Hertford petition in her support, The Times, 27 Jan. 1821. and to censure ministers for their prosecution of her, 6 Feb. 1821. On the Grampound disfranchisement bill, 12 Feb., he seconded the amendment to transfer its seats to Yorkshire, arguing that Members for Leeds would be in thrall to the local clothiers. He voted for Russell’s parliamentary reform motion, 9 May. He divided for Catholic relief, 28 Feb. He voted for repeal of the duty on agricultural horses, 5 Mar., and was named to the select committee on agricultural distress, 7 Mar. He voted for a reduction of the army by 10,000 men, 14 Mar., after advocating withdrawal from Gibraltar and the Ionian Isles and the replacement of half the household troops with an armed police force. He voted for repeal of the malt duty, 21 Mar., but not on 3 Apr., when he was probably absent because of the death of his brother Robert, on account of which he was given three weeks’ leave, 5 Apr. He voted for further army reductions, 25 May, to equalize the interest rates on treasury and exchequer bills, 30 May, and to raise £200,000 by lottery, 1 June. He is not known to have voted against the grant to the duke of Clarence that month, though on the 6th he protested against the supposition that princes of the blood had an automatic right to financial support. He was in the opposition minority for economy and retrenchment, 27 June. He voted for abolition of the death penalty for forgery, 23 May, 4 June, and for inquiry into the administration of justice in Tobago, 6 June 1821.

Calvert signed the requisition for and attended the county meeting on agricultural distress, 1 Feb. 1822, but evidently did not speak. County Chron. 22 Jan., 5 Feb. 1822. He voted against the suspension of habeas corpus in Ireland, 7 Feb. He was predisposed to be hostile to the motion for information on Sir Robert Wilson’s* dismissal from the army, 13 Feb.; but Wilson’s own speech and poor ministerial performances persuaded him to vote for it. Gurney diary, 13 Feb. [1822]. He divided for more substantial tax reductions to relieve distress, 11, 21 Feb., and went on to vote for some specific measures of retrenchment, including reduction or repeal of the salt duties, 28 Feb., 3, 28 June, and naval economies, 22 Feb., 1 Mar. He was not, however, one of the stalwarts of the opposition campaign on these issues. He did not think that Curwen’s scheme to transfer the tax on candles and soap to tallow would help agriculturists, 22 Feb. The Times, 23 Feb. 1823. Presenting a petition for redress from the farmers who attended Hertford market, 27 Mar., he said that it was ‘very respectfully worded, though it was not very complimentary to ... ministers, from whom it advised the House to withdraw its confidence’. Ibid. 28 Mar. 1822. He supported motions for mitigation of Henry Hunt’s* gaol sentence, 14, 22, 28 Mar., Ibid. 15 Mar. 1822. and voted for parliamentary reform, 25 Apr. He had been appointed to the renewed agricultural distress committee, 18 Feb., and on its report, 8 May, was reported as speaking in favour of Wyvill’s motion for large tax remissions, though he was not listed in the minority who voted for it. He acknowledged the need to modify the corn laws in order to prevent violent price fluctuations when the ports were opened; Ibid. 9 May 1822. but on 9 May he voted in the small minorities for a permanent 18s. bounty on wheat exports and against the proposed new duties. In supporting inquiry into the state of Ireland, 22 Apr., he ‘did not mean to impute the least blame to the present government’, for ‘it was to those governments which had passed away, that all her miseries were to be ascribed’. He voted for reform of Irish tithes, 19 June. On 1 Mar. he secured the appointment of a select committee on forfeited recognizances. He introduced a bill to improve procedures for dealing with them, 1 May, and saw it through the House and on to the statute book, 24 June 1822 (3 Geo. III, c. 46). Ibid. 2 Mar. 1822; CJ, Ixxvii. 220, 222, 248, 318, 329, 351, 367.

Calvert signed the requisition for the Hertfordshire county reform meeting, 8 Feb. 1823, but, for reasons which are not clear, he could not obtain a hearing when he tried to address it. County Herald, 8, 15 Feb. 1823. He was not very active in the ensuing session, when his only known votes were against government on the national debt reduction bill, 17 Mar., naval and military pensions, 14 Apr., the prosecution of the Dublin Orange rioters, 22 Apr., parliamentary reform, 24 Apr., Scottish reform, 2 June, and the lord advocate’s dealings with the Scottish press, 9 June. He paired in favour of the Scottish juries bill, 20 June. He declared his opposition to the total abolition of punishment by flogging, 30 Apr., and commented that if it were true that it destroyed the victim’s self-respect, there would be few Members with a shred left after their experiences at school. He presented local petitions against the seaborne coal duties, 20 Feb., and joined in calls for their repeal, 25, 29 Mar., 1 Apr. 1824, preferring it to abolition of the window tax; The Times, 21 Feb. 1824. this view prompted him to oppose Maberly’s motion for repeal of the assessed taxes, 10 May, when he said that removal of the imposts on labourers’ necessities should have priority. He suggested that if the execrated new Westminster law courts buildings were abandoned and demolished, the materials could be sold to recoup some of the financial loss, 1 Mar. He brought up anti-slavery petitions from Hoddesdon, Hertford and Ware, 8, 11, 18 Mar. Ibid. 9, 12, 19 Mar. 1824. He voted against the aliens bill, 23 Mar., 2, 12 Apr., though on the 2nd he objected to Hume’s reference to European sovereigns as ‘continental despots’. He divided to refer the report of the commission on the Scottish judicial system to a committee of the whole House, 30 Mar., against the grant for new churches, 9 Apr., for inquiry into the state of Ireland, 11 May, and in censure of the prosecution of the Methodist missionary John Smith in Demerara, 11 June. He objected to the compensation clause proposed to be added to Lord Althorp’s county courts bill, 24 May 1824.

Calvert voted for Catholic relief, 1 Mar., 21 Apr., 10 May 1825, and observed on 22 Apr. that the frequent debates on the subject had done much to dispel popular ignorance. Ibid. 23 Apr. 1825. He presented a Ware petition against the house and window taxes, 18 Mar., and recommended postponement of the county lands transfer bill to afford time for inquiry, 11 May. Ibid. 19 Mar., 12 May 1825. He approved of the grant to McAdam, 13 May, and voted against the Leith docks bill, 20 May. He divided with opposition on chancery delays, 7 June, the duke of Cumberland’s annuity, 9, 10 June, and the judges’ salaries bill, 17 June, when he said that its great disparity between salaries and retirement pensions would encourage judges to cling on beyond their time: ‘He had seen judges on the bench who were labouring under two of the disqualifying infirmities of old age - deafness and peevishness’. He presented a Ware petition in favour of the cattle slaughtering bill, 16 June 1825. Ibid. 17 June 1825. In September, when a dissolution was expected, the Whig county Member William Lamb, whose hostility to parliamentary reform had damaged him and whose father’s failing health made his removal to the Lords only a matter of time, decided on the advice of his friends not to seek re-election. Calvert offered in his room, and the impression of their collusion was strengthened when Lamb in turn declared his candidature for Hertford. Torrens, Melbourne, i. 207-9; Herts Mercury, 3, 24 Sept. 1825. Calvert voted against government on the Bank of England’s charter, 13 Feb., and distress in the silk trade, 24 Feb. 1826. He presented petitions for the abolition of slavery, 24 Feb., 14, 15 Mar. The Times, 25 Feb., 15, 16 Mar. 1826. He expressed his wish to see the corn laws revised, 6 Mar., but stated his objection to any alteration which deprived the landed proprietor of a fair remuneration. He seems to have accepted the subsequent emergency legislation to admit foreign corn, and on 12 May he criticized Lord Milton for ‘encouraging the cry against the agricultural interest’. He was in the minority of nine against the promissory notes bill, 7 Mar., and voted for the disqualification of non-resident voters in Irish boroughs, 9 Mar.; but on the latter day he also voiced his ‘unfeigned pleasure’ at Peel’s scheme to consolidate the larceny laws, though he strongly recommended transportation for hardened offenders. He supported Russell’s bill to eradicate electoral bribery and said that constituencies found guilty of corruption should be disfranchised, 14 Mar. Ibid. 15 Mar. 1826. He voted for reform in the representation of Edinburgh, 13 Apr., general reform, 27 Apr., and Russell’s resolutions on electoral bribery, 26 May. He divided against government on the question of the president of the board of trade’s salary, 7, 10 Apr. He objected to the clause of the spring guns bill which made the owner of such a gun which injured a burglar liable to prosecution, 27 Apr. 1826. Calvert duly stood for the county at the general election in June. There was no opposition, but he and the sitting Member, Sir John Sebright, a local squire of broadly similar politics to his own, were personally attacked at the nomination meeting for their support of Catholic claims. Calvert’s rejoinder was that he had no reason to regret his support for the civilized principle of religious toleration, and that there was no future in continuing to treat Irish Catholics ‘as a conquered people’, and thereby fomenting in them ‘disloyalty, hatred and discontent’. Herts Mercury, 3, 17 June 1826.

He secured the appointment of a select committee on the problem of petitions which tried to dispense with standing orders, 24 Nov. 1826. The Times, 25 Nov. 1826. He presented an anti-Catholic petition from the mayor and corporation of Hertford, 8 Dec. 1826, but voted as usual for relief, 6 Mar. 1827. He was one of the ‘friends’ of opposition who voted with government for the duke of Clarence’s grant, Feb. 1827. Add. 51784, Holland to C.R. Fox, 17 Feb. 1827. He presented two Hertfordshire petitions calling for greater agricultural protection, 27 Feb. The Times, 9 Dec. 1826, 28 Feb. 1827. On 26 Mar. he remarked that while he ‘put no particular faith in the character or inclination of the agriculturists’, he ‘thought it pretty near impossible for them to combine’ to manipulate the corn price averages. He divided for inquiries into the Irish miscellaneous estimates and chancery delays, 5 Apr. He welcomed Althorp’s bill to curb the cost of elections, 8 May, and tried unsuccessfully to obtain a further reduction in the price of postage for the poor of Ireland, 17 May. Ibid. 9, 18 May 1827. He supported Canning’s ministry, and on 18 May advised the premier to ignore Lethbridge’s provocative questions about the change of government. He did, however, vote in the majority for the disfranchisement of Penryn, 28 May. On Stanley’s proposed Preston elections bill, 14 June, he spoke emphatically against the ‘demoralizing’ principle of the secret ballot, which would encourage dishonesty among voters subject to influence. As for East Retford, deemed guilty of gross corruption, he favoured the transfer of its franchise to ‘some place, where it would be exercised with more fidelity’, 22 June; but he would not pledge himself to support Tennyson’s plan to give its seats to Birmingham. Ibid. 15, 23 June 1827. He voted with government for the grant to improve Canadian water communications, 12 June, and the same day seconded Slaney’s motion for leave to bring in a bill to amend the regulations concerning the employment of the able-bodied poor. He backed Palmer’s motion to refine the procedures for dealing with forfeited recognizances, 14 June. Ibid. 13, 15 June 1827. He presented Hertford, Sawbridgeworth and Ware petitions for repeal of the Test Acts, 30 May, 7 June 1827. Ibid. 31 May, 8 June 1827. In early September 1827 he wrote to Thomas Spring Rice* of his concern at the difficulties being experienced in forming a new administration and his devout wish that Lord Lansdowne would agree to serve in it. Spring Rice sent his letter to Lansdowne as an example of how a ‘liberal country gentleman’ was inclined to view the state of affairs. Lansdowne mss, Calvert to Rice, 2 Sept., Rice to Lansdowne, 3 Sept. 1827. Later that month he sought the assistance of his friend William Huskisson*, colonial secretary in the Goderich ministry, in resuscitating his earlier bid to secure an appointment as an attaché for one of his sons, which he feared had ‘fallen to the ground’ with Canning’s death. Huskisson indicated that the foreign secretary, Lord Dudley, seemed, ‘not ... quite so encouraging as I could wish’, but urged Calvert not to give up hope; the outcome is not known. Add. 38571, ff. 82, 144.

Calvert presented petitions for repeal of the Test Acts, 15, 18, 25 Feb., said on 20 Feb. that few Dissenters were hostile to Catholic relief, and voted for repeal of the Test Acts, 26 Feb. 1828. On 25 Feb. he objected to Waithman’s call for army economies, arguing that it would be sensible first to tranquillize Ireland and reduce Britain’s colonial commitments. Taken to task by Hume, he replied that

when the manufacturing districts were in a state of starvation ... he never felt a wish to intervene coercively with the people. He ... had always extended feelings of commiseration towards the sufferers, though he was not to be persuaded by them, that parliamentary reform was the remedy for all their privations.

Calvert briefly assumed a high profile in the House through his intervention in the controversy over how to deal with East Retford, which eventually led to the resignation of the Huskissionites from the Wellington ministry. On 25 Feb. he reiterated the view that the House was perfectly entitled to transfer the franchise from one set of electors to another if it had been abused. In committee on Tennyson’s bill to give the seats to Birmingham, 21 Mar., he moved an instruction for the borough to be sluiced by extending the right of election to the freeholders of the hundred of Bassetlaw, contending that the 2,000 voters there would not be in the pocket of the duke of Newcastle, that such a step would benefit the agricultural interest, that the rights of innocent voters should be preserved, and that the alternative scheme had no chance of passing the Lords. He was, of course, aware of the cabinet decision to compromise on the problem of East Retford and Penryn by throwing the former into the hundred and proposing the replacement of the latter by Manchester. On the strength of the government’s, and particularly Peel’s attitude, Calvert’s instruction was carried by 157-121. Three days later he and Peel were at pains to deny any collusion on the subject. Proceedings on East Retford were shelved pending the progress of the Penryn bill in the Lords, which encountered such hostility there that it was withdrawn. When the committee of the whole House on the East Retford bill resumed, 19 May, Calvert, maintaining that ‘the landed interest is daily dwindling away, and ... the monied interest is daily rising’, again proposed extension to the hundred instead of enfranchising Birmingham. His instruction was carried by 14 votes, but the ministers Huskisson and Lord Palmerston, partly through a misunderstanding, voted against Peel in the minority, despite a prior government decision to adhere to the arrangement of March. Huskisson’s ill considered offer of resignation and Wellington’s indecently hasty acceptance of it immediately ensued. After further discussions on the East Retford bill, 2 June, Calvert’s amendment was confirmed, but he found himself at odds with Sebright, who like most reformers considered extension to the hundred a fudge. On 24 June Calvert got leave to introduce a separate bill to disqualify by name a number of East Retford voters who had been found guilty of corruption; it had a first reading two days later. On 27 June he defeated attempts to transfer the franchise to Yorkshire and to kill the Bassetlaw bill; but with the session drawing to a close proceedings on both measures were deferred, 11 July 1828, when Calvert admitted that the names of dead voters had been included in the disqualification bill as a deterrent to others.

He seconded Slaney’s renewed attempt to reform the poor rates, 17 Apr. 1828, when he said that he was ‘a warm advocate for alteration, because I know of no more fertile source of crime than the poor laws as they at present stand’. The following day he doubted whether New South Wales was ready for the introduction of jury trials, as Mackintosh proposed. He supported the corn bill, 28 Apr., pointing out that English farmers, unlike their continental counterparts, invested large amounts of capital in the cultivation of their land. He seconded Sebright’s unsuccessful bid to allow the bill for the erection of a new court house at St. Albans to be proceeded with despite a failure to comply with standing orders, 29 Apr., and observed that the orders relating to private bills stood greatly in need of revision, 2 May. He voted for Catholic relief, 12 May. He divided for an inquiry into the circulation of small notes in Scotland and Ireland, 5 June, in protest at the amount of public money being spent on the refurbishment of Buckingham House, 23 June, and for inquiry into the Irish church, 24 June. On behalf of an absent colleague, he tried to empower magistrates to regulate according to local circumstances the time to which public houses could stay open under the licensing bill, 19 June 1828, but he was persuaded by ministers to withdraw the motion. At the new Hertford mayor’s inaugural dinner, 29 Sept. 1828, Calvert insisted that his consistent support for Catholic relief had not ‘in the slightest degree endangered the Protestant establishment’. Herts Mercury, 4 Oct. 1828. He presented petitions for relief, 10 Feb., 11 Mar. 1829, voted for emancipation, 6, 30 Mar., and on 17 Mar. denied an assertion that most Scots were hostile to it. He defended Byng’s county bridges bill, 25 Mar., presented petitions from the trustees of the Lea navigation and local millers against the East London Waterworks bill, 13 Apr., and petitions from two individual silk throwsters for increased protection against foreign imports, 4 May. The following day he opposed and defeated by 197-111 Tennyson’s motion to reintroduce his bill to transfer East Retford’s seats to Birmingham and moved for leave to bring in the measure to extend it to Bassetlaw. He conceded an adjournment to 11 May when, on Peel’s advice, he agreed to shelve the matter until the next session. On 2 June 1829 he opposed a Tory motion to issue a new writ, arguing that this would merely give the miscreants another chance to receive 40 guineas for their votes; it was defeated by 135-44. That day he voted in the minority of 40 for Lord Blandford’s parliamentary reform scheme.

Calvert voted for the amendment to the address, 4 Feb., again for Blandford’s scheme, 18 Feb., and for the enfranchisement of Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, 23 Feb. 1830. With Peel’s support, he carried his motion to bring in the East Retford bill, 11 Feb., defeating Tennyson’s amendment for transfer to Birmingham by 154-55. He saw the measure through its second reading, 26 Feb., made short work of a ‘ridiculous and preposterous’ attempt to force future Members for the constituency to swear their innocence of bribery before taking their seats, 8 Mar., and carried its third reading by 104-83, 15 Mar. The measure was eventually rushed through the Lords and became law on 23 July 1830, just in time for the general election. Calvert stated that many landowners had made substantial reductions in rent to assist distressed farmers, 12 Feb. He was given a week’s leave to attend the assizes, 1 Mar. At the county meeting to petition for tax reductions and reform, 13 Mar., he declared that he was ‘not opposed to the present government’ because they had carried Catholic emancipation, ameliorated the criminal code and abolished ‘several useless places’; but he threatened to ‘enter the lists with those who opposed them’ if the budget did not propose ‘considerable reductions in the public expenditure’. The Times, 15 Mar. 1830. When Sebright presented the meeting’s petition, 16 Mar., Calvert confirmed his statement that there had been unanimity in favour of repeal of the beer, malt and hop duties, but a difference of opinion on reform. He showed little disposition to oppose government on questions of economy and retrenchment during the rest of the session, when his only known such votes were on the ordnance estimates, 29 Mar., the four and a half per cent duties, 21 May, and the grant for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospels in the colonies, 14 June; and he even divided with ministers against reduction of the grant for South American missions, 7 June. He did so again on the sugar duties, 21 June. Grey mss, Howick jnl. 21 June [1830]. He supported Lord Ellenborough’s divorce bill, 1 Apr. On 26 Apr. he presented a Royston petition for mitigation of the punishment for forgery, and he voted for the abolition of the death sentence for this offence, 24 May, 7 June. He stated his ‘strong objections’ to some aspects of the poor law amendment bill, 26 Apr., but, unlike many sitting near him, he largely approved of the Scottish and Irish poor removal bill, 26 May, 4 June. He was willing to give Littleton’s truck bill ‘a fair chance’, 23 June, though he did not think it would do much good. He presented petitions from publicans of Bishop’s Stortford and Hitchin against the sale of beer bill, 4 May, and voted for a two year postponement of on-sales, 1 July. On 17 May he spoke and voted against Grant’s Jewish emancipation bill because it did ‘not go far enough’, in that it did not extend to Quakers (who played a significant role in the affairs of Hertford). Calvert at least signified by his vote of 28 May 1830 that he was still a supporter of parliamentary reform.

He encountered no opposition at the 1830 general election. Herts Mercury, 10 July, 14 Aug. 1830. He seconded Manners Sutton’s reappointment as Speaker, 26 Oct. On 3 Nov. he agreed with complaints that petitions took up too much of the House’s time, and recommended referring the problem to a select committee. He was named to the committee on the standing orders for private bills, 8 Nov. 1830, and had something to say as its chairman, 28 Mar. 1831. He suggested that money could be saved by reducing the number of petitions which were printed, 9 Mar. 1831. Although ministers had initially listed him among their ‘foes’, the comment had been later added that he ‘will not be uniformly opposed’; but he voted against them on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830. He presented petitions for the abolition of slavery, 25 Nov., having attended the county meeting on the issue on the 5th. Ibid. 6 Nov. 1830. He brought up Hertfordshire petitions for repeal of the coal duties, 3, 4, 17 Feb. 1831. He was said to have ‘expressed privately ... disappointment’ at the Grey ministry’s plans to reform the civil list, 4 Feb. Three Diaries, 46. He saw no point in a protracted and idle discussion of the problem of tithes, which he advised Hume to raise through a formal motion, 16 Feb. He voted silently for the second reading of the ministerial reform bill, 22 Mar., and against Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. 1831. At the ensuing general election Calvert announced that had the 1830 Parliament lasted for an ‘average term of existence’, he would have carried out his intention of retiring to ‘the occupations of private life’ on its dissolution, ‘as he now felt that he was getting too old to attend effectively to the duties’ of a Member. In view of the importance of the reform question, however, he had decided, ‘like a military officer who, when ordered on foreign service, thought it cowardly to throw up his commission’, to stand again as a supporter of the bill:

There were a few desponding, hypochondriac gentlemen, who strove to make the people believe that reform would pull down the king, destroy the peerage, and overthrow the church. This was all humbug. The fact was, the Lords had been poaching upon the people’s manor, and when the people’s rights were restored by the bill, he was sure the peers would be much better liked than at present.

A threatened opposition collapsed, and Calvert came in again with Sebright. County Chron. 3 May; County Herald, 14 May 1831. He voted for the second reading of the reintroduced reform bill, 6 July 1831, and was a steady silent supporter of its details, though he was in the minority for the total disfranchisement of Saltash, 26 July. The following day, in a row over corrupt boroughs, he asserted that in 24 years as Member for Hertford he had neither bribed nor been beholden to a patron. His vote against the enfranchisement of £50 tenants, 18 Aug., exposed him to some criticism from Hertfordshire farmers. County Press, 23, 30 Aug. 1830. He presented a Ware maltsters’ petition against the use of molasses in brewing, 12 Aug. He divided with government on the Dublin election controversy, 23 Aug. He voted for the third reading, 19 Sept., and passage of the reform bill, 21 Sept., and for the second reading of the Scottish bill, 23 Sept. At the county meeting to petition the Lords to pass the measure, 30 Sept., he said that as ‘a man of few words’, he had ‘voted for reform all his life from conviction, and not from tame subservience to the deficiencies of others’. Ibid. 4 Oct. 1831. He voted for the motion of confidence in ministers, 10 Oct. Calvert voted for the second reading of the revised reform bill, 17 Dec. 1831, was again a reliable supporter of its details, and voted for its third reading, 22 Mar. 1832. He supported Warburton’s anatomy bill, 24 Jan. He divided with government on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., 12, 16, 20 July, and relations with Portugal, 9 Feb., and, ‘having always supported’ them, did likewise on the Irish master of the rolls bill, 22 Feb., ‘as they have taken this up as a government question’. He voted for the address calling on the king to appoint only ministers who would carry the reform bill unimpaired, 10 May, the second reading of the Irish bill, 25 May, and against a Conservative amendment to the Scottish bill, 1 June 1832.

That month Calvert, now aged 68, initially declared his intention of retiring when the current Parliament was dissolved. So too did Sebright, but they were persuaded by the county reformers to stand again to counter a strong Conservative threat. At the general election in December Calvert was returned second in the poll, but he stepped down at the next dissolution. Herts Mercury, 23, 30 June, 7 July 1832. He died from ‘softening of the brain’ in April 1841. During his distressing last illness his wife, who survived him by 18 years, wrote that ‘the powers of his mind are gradually declining. He enjoys nothing, and cannot move without help - a joyless existence, and I can do nothing’. Blake, 365; Gent. Mag. (1841), i. 660. By his will, dated 23 June 1837, he left his wife £1,000 and provided for his younger children in accordance with the terms of a trust fund of £15,000 Irish money established on his marriage 48 years previously. His personalty was sworn under £60,000. He devised all his real estate in Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Middlesex and London to his eldest son Felix Calvert (1790-1856), a soldier who attained the rank of lieutenant-general. On his death without issue he was succeeded by his next brother Edmund Calvert (1797-1866), who sold Hunsdon soon afterwards, but retained and lived at Furneux Pelham. PROB 11/1948/482; PROB 8/234 (26 July 1841); VCH Herts. iii. 328; iv. 103.