FLEMING, John II (1781-1844), of North Stoneham, Hants.

Fleming, who was baptized John Barton Willis, was the great-grandson of Browne Willis (1682-1760), an eccentric Buckinghamshire antiquary. IGI (Bucks.); Berry’s Hants Genealogies, 126-8; Oxford DNB. He derived no direct benefit from the will of his father Thomas Willis, a Buckinghamshire clergyman, but as the reversionary heir of his cousin John Fleming (1743-1802), Member for Southampton, 1774-80, 1784-90, he acquired substantial estates at North Stoneham and Romsey, Hampshire, and Binstead, Isle of Wight. PROB 11/1191/217; VCH Bucks. iv. 278-9, 282. This property had passed in the first instance to John Fleming’s wife, who apparently did not long survive him, if it can be assumed that Willis was in residence by the time of his Hampshire militia appointment in 1803. He had certainly taken possession by 1813, when he complied with his benefactor’s testamentary injunction on his heirs to take ‘the name of ffleming [sic] exclusive of their own surnames ... and use the utmost endeavour by all proper means and methods to obtain an Act of Parliament to change their names’. PROB 11/1369/105; VCH Hants, iii. 479; iv. 453; v. 143, 151-2. In spite of this, he was often referred to as John Willis Fleming or John Barton Willis Fleming, probably to facilitate identification, and his descendants used a hyphenated version of the name.

Fleming raised his profile as a Hampshire landowner by the purchases of South Stoneham in 1819 and Chilworth in 1825. He resided at the former during the initial construction work on a vast new mansion at North Stoneham, built to the classical design of Thomas Hopper. VCH Hants, iii. 468, 483; J. Vale, ‘Country Houses of Southampton’, Procs. Hants Field Club, xxxix (1983), 172, 180-1. The ‘gorgeous magnificence’ of its interior furnishings was eulogized in an 1827 press report, and he lived, according to an admirer, ‘in baronial splendour ... his purse ... always open to the poor and needy’. Hants Telegraph, 1 Jan. 1827, 20 Dec. 1830. He was certainly adept at securing maximum publicity for his philanthropic endeavours, in which the encouragement of self-reliance was a recurrent theme. The Hampshire Benefit Society, a contributory insurance scheme founded in 1824, was intended to restore ‘that spirit of providence and personal exertion ... which the present miserable dependence upon the poor rate has of late years almost totally banished from the labouring classes’. Wellington mss WP1/798/13. His aggressive promotion of this project, which duplicated existing provision, became a source of some local resentment against him. Hants Telegraph, 19 June 1826. Fleming came to political prominence at the outset of his Hampshire shrieval term in February 1817, when he ignored a requisition for a county meeting on distress in favour of another, to frame a loyal address. William Cobbett†, the author of the former, protested that ‘the little dull sheriff’ did his utmost to stifle debate at the meeting, when he summarily declared the loyalist motion carried amid scenes of noisy chaos. Pol. Reg. 15 Mar.; The Times, 13 Mar. 1817. At the general election of 1820 he came forward for the county on a double vacancy. Thomas Freeman Heathcote, one of the retiring Members, had introduced him to the premier Lord Liverpool in October 1819 as

a gentleman of very large fortune ... commanding a considerable influence in this county, which (though independent of any party) he has generally influenced in favour of the government and always in support of the constitution of his country. Add. 38280, f. 103.

On the hustings he declared himself to be no enemy to ‘temperate, safe and rational reform’. Many were impressed by his protestations of independence, but his essential ministerialism soon emerged after his unopposed return. Hants Telegraph, 20, 27 Mar. 1820. He became a close ally of the duke of Wellington, the Hampshire lord lieutenant, to whom he wrote advising against the appointment of an opposition supporter as chairman of the quarter sessions in March 1825. Later, in January 1833, he blamed himself for failures in the informal political vetting of appointments to the bench. R. Foster, Politics of County Power, 30; Wellington mss WP1/814/22; WP4/5/1/2.

Fleming seldom spoke in the House, though he was an accomplished enough orator out of doors. He was prepared to oppose ministers on occasions, often in deference to constituency opinion, but his votes in the 1820 Parliament are subject to confusion with those of John Fleming, Member for Saltash. It was probably the latter, who was more inclined towards opposition, who cast the votes against the aliens bill, 7 July, and the barrack agreement bill, 17 July 1820. The Hampshire Member chaired a local meeting of old Etonians later that month. Hants Telegraph, 31 July 1820. At a county meeting on the Queen Caroline affair, 12 Jan. 1821, he refused to comment on her exclusion from the liturgy and was hissed for his attempt to vindicate ministers’ handling of the business. Ibid. 15 Jan. 1821. He divided accordingly, 6 Feb. On the presentation of the meeting’s petition, which he sought to denigrate, 26 Jan., he was accused of ‘trying the patience’ of the assembly by Alexander Baring. Given his later record it was probably he who voted against Catholic relief, 28 Feb., but it less likely that he was in the minority for mitigation of the punishment for forgery, 4 June. He presented a county petition complaining of agricultural distress, 19 Mar. The Times, 20 Mar. 1821. A local newspaper reported that he had voted for repeal of the additional malt duty, 21 Mar., and had paired for abolition of the tax on husbandry horses, 14 June, having been called away by the illness of one of his children. Hants Telegraph, 26 Mar., 25 June; Salisbury Jnl. 2 July 1821. If this was so, it was surely not he who divided for the omission of arrears from the grant to the duke of Clarence, 8, 18 June, and for economy and retrenchment, 27 June. To alleviate distress, he was said to have reduced rents by ten per cent in his audit of July 1821. Hants Telegraph, 9 July 1821.

Fleming introduced a yeomanry petition complaining of agricultural distress at the Hampshire quarter sessions in January 1822, but withdrew it after general exception was taken to his peremptory erasure of passages critical of the magistracy. Ibid. 28 Jan 1822. He was in government majorities against more extensive tax reductions to relieve distress, 11, 21 Feb., but voted for reduction of the salt duty, 28 Feb., and the number of junior admiralty lords, 1 Mar. Either he or his namesake was in the minorities to abolish one of the joint-postmasterships, 13 Mar., and for naval reductions, 18 Mar. He presented agricultural distress petitions from the New Forest, 23 Feb., and Romsey, 13 May, when he also presented one from Portsea against allowing Catholic peers to sit, in which sense he had probably divided, 30 Apr. The Times, 23 Feb., 14 May 1822. He presented two petitions against the poor removal bill, 30 May. Ibid. 31 May 1822. That month he distributed premiums to the most industrious labourers on his North Stoneham estate. Salisbury Jnl. 20 May 1822. He voted to consider criminal law reform, 4 June, if it was this division to which he referred in a later speech. Hants Telegraph, 19 June 1826. He may have cast votes for repeal of the salt duty, 28 June, referral of the Calcutta bankers’ petition to a select committee, 4 July, and in favour of a grant for printing government proclamations in Irish newspapers, 22 July, though he had suffered a double fracture of the arm in a carriage accident only days before the last. With the aid of an innovatory splint apparatus, he made a complete recovery. Ibid. 22, 29 July 1822, 14 July, 13 Oct. 1823. He was reported to be too busy to attend the anniversary meeting of the Hampshire County Club, 7 Aug., but was present at Southampton races later that month. Ibid. 12, 19 Aug. 1822. In December 1822 he donated blankets to the poor of Southampton. Salisbury Jnl. 30 Dec. 1822. He announced a one quarter remission of rent and tithes in January 1823, and wrote off arrears of two years from one tenant, who was allowed to depart with his stock. Hants Telegraph, 2 Dec. 1822, 13 Jan. 1823. The general cry at the county meeting on 1 Mar. 1823 was against the 1821 Currency Act, but Fleming blamed economic distress squarely on foreign imports and described radical proposals to alter public credit arrangements as ‘an act of robbery’. Ibid. 3 Mar. 1823. He made little mark in the House that session, but may have divided against inquiry into the right of voting in parliamentary elections, 20 Feb, and was certainly in the ministerial majority against repeal of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 16 Apr. When he offered a further rent reduction to tenants in December 1823, he claimed to have voted to halve the assessed taxes, but if he did so it went unrecorded. Ibid. 19 Dec. 1823.

Fleming’s private efforts to persuade Peel, the home secretary, that the provisions of the Gaol Act would devastate the municipal finances of Portsea fell on stony ground in February 1824. Add. 40361, ff. 213, 217. Assuming this to be evidence of his interest, it was surely he who was appointed to the select committees on prisons, 18 Mar., and county gaols, 12 Apr. 1824. He was unlikely to have voted for information on Catholic burials, 6 Feb., but may have been the ‘J.S. Fleming’ listed in minorities to permit defence by counsel in felony trials, 6 Apr., and for repeal of the usury laws, 8 Apr. He presented petitions for abolition of the duty on coals and excise licenses, 1, 22 Mar. The Times, 2, 23, Mar. 1824. Although he went along with the demands for a reduction in assessed taxes made at a county meeting, 23 Apr., he claimed to detect signs of an upturn in the agricultural sector and defended the grant for additional churches, having lately contributed £100 towards one in Southampton. Salisbury Jnl. 8 Mar.; Hants Telegraph, 26 Apr. 1824. He chaired the inaugural meeting of the Hampshire Benefit Society in December 1824, and was appointed to the select committee on friendly societies, 24 Feb. 1825. Salisbury Jnl. 6 Dec. 1824. The votes listed for ‘J. Fleming’ for suppression of the Catholic Association, 25 Feb., and against Catholic relief, 1 Mar., 21 Apr., 10 May, and the disfranchisement of Irish 40s. freeholders all accord with his known opinions, and it was probably he who divided in favour of the duke of Cumberland’s annuity bill, 6, 10 June. He presented petitions for a repeal of assessed taxes from Southampton and Romsey, 4 Mar., having sent notice of the latter to his colleague Purefoy Jervoise. In a similar communication concerning the committee arrangements for the Portsea paving and lighting bill, 10 Mar., he confided his plans to leave London for a spell on account of his wife’s health. On 20 Mar. he requested information on the progress of the Portsmouth canal bill and, anticipating ‘sad disgrace if I do not attend’, promised to be present for the second reading, which took place on 28 Mar. The Times, 5 Mar. 1825; Hants RO, Jervoise mss 44M69 G2/466/1-3. He presented petitions from several Hampshire parishes against alteration of the corn laws, 28 Apr. 1825, and was probably responsible for votes against their relaxation in the following session, 8, 11 May 1826. The Times 29 Apr. 1825. He presented petitions from Overton weavers against silk imports, 1 Mar., and both for and against changes to the law governing benefit societies, 14 Mar., 18 Apr. 1826. Ibid. 1, 15 Mar., 19 Apr. 1826.

At the 1826 general election Fleming’s proposer referred with approval to his opposition to Catholic relief, which he pledged to continue. He welcomed government endeavours to ease the tax burden but, in a reaffirmation of his support for the corn laws, blamed its recent deviation from ‘good old commercial policy’ for an economic downturn in the agricultural districts. When questioned on his attitude to progressive legislation, he claimed to have voted for reform of the customs and excise and the courts of equity, and for the disfranchisement of the corrupt borough of Grampound, but added that ‘he was not for pulling the constitution to pieces’. Rumours of an opposition came to nothing and he was returned unopposed. Hants Telegraph, 19 June 1826. At Christmas he gave a dinner and fancy dress ball to the corporations of Southampton and Romsey. Southampton Herald, 1 Jan. 1827. He voted against Catholic relief, 6 Mar. 1827, 12 May 1828. He presented petitions against alteration of the corn laws from Petersfield and Fareham farmers, 29 Mar., and from county landowners, 18 June, and voted accordingly, 2 Apr. 1827. The Times, 30 Mar., 19 June 1827. On 28 May he divided for curbs on election expenses. He presented petitions for repeal of the Test Acts, 31 May, 11, 12 June 1827, but apparently did not vote on the issue, 26 Feb. 1828. Ibid. 1, 12, 13 June, 1827. He presented petitions against the Malt Act, 28 Feb., and the friendly societies bill, 25 Apr. On 10 Apr. he spoke at a Romsey meeting against the use of boy chimney sweeps and extolled the virtues of mechanical alternatives. Hants Chron. 14 Apr. 1828. Next month he went to Paris, having apparently abandoned plans for a similar trip the previous autumn. Palmerston-Sulivan Letters, 202. On 8 May the foreign secretary Lord Dudley, an Oxford contemporary, had forwarded a letter of introduction to Lord Granville, the ambassador, in which he speculated that it was ‘only to please his wife (who I am told is pretty; though I never saw her) that he is going to trust himself for the second time in his life among our natural enemies’. He described Fleming as

a genuine Tory gentleman of the old rock ... and as is often the case with English gentleman [he] has more sense than he shows for in conversation. I do not want you to introduce him to the ‘Doctrinaires’, nor will he want to assist at a meeting of the Academy. But some little civilities will not be thrown away upon him, and he will come back in charming humour for the rest of the session. TNA 30/29/14.

As ‘an approved Protestant’, Fleming was paired with James Abercromby for a division on financial provision for Canning’s family, probably that of 22 May. Castle Howard mss, Abercromby to Carlisle, 17 May 1828. In a letter of 30 May he expressed satisfaction at the Huskissonite secession from Wellington, now prime minister, who felt it unnecessary to take up his offer to return immediately. Wellington mss WP1/934/25; 939/2. No further parliamentary activity is recorded for 1828, when the recipients of his bounty included the Hampshire Agricultural Society, the county hospital, the race meetings at Basingstoke, Southampton, Stockbridge and Winchester, the regattas at Southampton and Cowes and a grand ball at Winchester. Foster, 134.

The patronage secretary Planta listed Fleming as likely to vote ‘with government’ on their planned concession of Catholic emancipation in February 1829. He presented hostile petitions, 9 Feb., 4 Mar., when he indicated a new open-mindedness on the question and stated his confidence in Peel and Wellington. To the latter, he explained his intention to withdraw to Hampshire once he had redeemed his election pledge by voting against the introduction of the bill. This he did on 6 Mar., though he had further hostile petitions to present three days later. Wellington mss WP1/1002/6,7. By September he was sufficiently reconciled to emancipation to support the application of several Catholics to join the Hampshire bench. Ibid. WP4/1/46. He presented a silk thrower’s petition for indemnity against foreign imports, 1 May, and, finding himself ‘constantly assailed with complaints from all classes of my constituents’, favoured Wellington with a lengthy protectionist diatribe, 26 Dec. 1829. He conceded that ‘the extremely depressed value of commodities may be in a greater degree attributable to the contraction of the currency’, but ascribed the sharp drop in his own income from timber sales purely to a glut of the foreign raw material, and warned that the healthy official trading figures did not tally with popular perception. To Wellington’s assertion that agricultural distress was partly attributable to maladministration of the poor laws, he replied that this provision was already pared down ‘as far as the necessities of the people will admit’. Ibid. WP4/1/46,60,61. Fleming’s failure to oppose Wellington any further came under scrutiny at a county meeting, 10 Mar. 1830. To disapprobation, he defended his vote of 23 Feb. against the enfranchisement of Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester on the score of his conscientious opposition to parliamentary reform, and claimed that the bare notice given to economic distress in the king’s speech had been ‘a mere verbal error’. He doubted if the general reduction in taxes demanded by the meeting was practicable, but as a man of principle he promised to support its petition, with which he expressed his ‘entire concurrence’ on its presentation, 16 Mar. Hants Telegraph, 15 Mar.; Salisbury Jnl. 15 Mar. 1830. He voted against Jewish emancipation, 17 May. He presented an Isle of Wight petition against the sale of beer bill, 4 May, and voted to postpone permission for on-consumption, 1 July. Press reports stated that he viewed the measure as potentially ruinous to publicans, from which a sceptical commentator construed that he was merely anxious to preserve ‘his magisterial influence in dispensing licensing favours’. It was claimed that from personal inclination he would have supported mitigation of the punishment for forgery, 24 May, but that he had abstained in deference to constituency opinion. Hants Telegraph, 31 May, 7 June, 5 July 1830. In a bid to promote his own social experiment of granting rent-free allotments in lieu of poor relief, he gave notice on 4 June of a bill to empower all parish officers to do the same, of which no more was heard. Salisbury Jnl. 3 May 1830. He denounced calls for contingency plans to be made for a regency as ‘disrespectful and precipitate’ and politically motivated, 6 July 1830.

Before the general election of 1830 a rumour circulated that Fleming would stand for Southampton, where he possessed considerable influence, but in the event he offered again for the county. The Age, 20 Dec. 1829; Hants Advertiser, 17 July; Hants Telegraph, 26 July 1830. Struggling to be heard from the hustings over the catcalls, he insisted that the aspersions lately cast on his attendance record were rooted in ‘base and scandalous falsehood’. His equivocation over Catholic emancipation and his opposition to reform and economy were also held against him, but he was returned unopposed after attempts to mount an opposition ended in disarray. He prudently declined a chairing and was hanged in effigy by a mob. Hants Telegraph, 9 Aug. 1830. At subsequent dinners he called for acceptance of the Catholic question as settled and hinted at support for a measure of partial relief to the Jews. He presented an Alton petition against slavery, 3 Nov. Listed among the ‘friends’ of the ministry, he voted with them in the crucial division on the civil list, 15 Nov. On 30 Nov. 1830 he was belatedly granted a week’s leave on account of the disturbed state of his county. Incongruously clad in yachting attire, he had mustered the yeomanry eight days earlier to confront a riotous assembly of labourers at Portswood, before joining his colleague Heathcote in Winchester. Foster, 75-79. That month he was involved in the formal re-establishment of the Romsey and Southampton yeomanry troop and other local militia forces. Wellington mss WP4/2/2/36, 37. The docility of his own workforce during the ‘Swing’ disturbances was ascribed by a sympathetic newspaper to their generous wages, to which were added incentive payments for marriage, sobriety, industry and church attendance and membership of the Hampshire Benefit Society. A. Temple Patterson, Hist. Southampton, i. 154-5; Hants Telegraph, 27 Dec.; Salisbury Jnl. 27 Dec. 1830; Portsmouth Herald, 9 Feb. 1831. The fire which caused damage of ‘at least £4,000’ to his North Stoneham residence on 20 Jan. 1831 was generally reported as accidental in origin, though this explanation was treated with scepticism by Cobbett. Portsmouth Herald, 23 Jan.; Hants Telegraph, 24 Jan. 1831; Wellington mss WP4/3/1/3. On 3 Feb. Fleming presented a Hambledon petition in favour of a property tax, for which he had previously indicated his support. See Hants Telegraph, 15 Mar. 1830. He opposed the Grey ministry’s reform bill from the outset and thought its success unlikely. On 4 Mar. he confidently told Wellington:

Sir R. Peel’s speech last night was decisive of the fate of this most revolutionary measure, and I trust also, although of less immediate importance, of the dismissal of the most daring, rash and incapable administration ever entrusted with the government of this country. Thank God they have been tried, and afforded a comparison of their abilities with those of their predecessors. Wellington mss WP4/3/1/7; Hants Telegraph, 24 Jan.; Hants Advertiser, 12 Feb. 1831.

Such was the clamour raised against him at a county meeting, 17 Mar., that his specific objections to the bill were inaudible. Hants Telegraph, 21 Mar. 1831. He voted against its second reading, 22 Mar., and for Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. 1831. At the ensuing general election he faced two reformers single-handed after the retreat of his colleague. In his address he attacked a ministry ‘who have utterly failed in realising the economy and retrenchment so liberally professed before their accession to office’, and despite being pelted on his canvass, assured Wellington that victory might be secured ‘by a certain expenditure of cash’, 28 Apr. Two days before the election he bowed to the inevitable and withdrew, but not before erroneously identifying one of his opponents as a government pensioner in an ungracious parting shot, for which he was later forced to apologize. Wellington mss WP4/3/4/18,19,21-23; Portsmouth Herald, 1 May; The Times, 9 May 1831.

Fleming continued to campaign against reform in Hampshire throughout the summer of 1831, but he deferred to Wellington’s opinion that a formal declaration on the subject might do more harm than good, while his plans for a Southampton newspaper entitled The Anti-Anarchist came to nothing. Wellington mss WP1/1186/31; 1187/14,16; WP4/3/4/25, 26. No trace has been found in the records of either House of the petition which he contemplated in November against the ‘dangerous and illegal’ political unions. Ibid. WP4/3/4/46,47. He had no notion of standing when a Hampshire seat became vacant by the resignation of Sir James Macdonald in June 1832, and told Wellington that he felt ‘no ambition whatever to sit in the reformed House of Commons’, 3 Sept., but he nevertheless stood for the Southern division of the county at the 1832 general election. Ibid. WP4/4/2/50; 4/3/5. The Conservative whip Holmes was optimistic about his chances and he fought an aggressive campaign, targeting the anti-Dutch policy pursued by the foreign secretary Lord Palmerston, his principal opponent. He stressed his continued opposition to free trade and complained of the numerous ‘anomalies’ contained in the Reform Act. Arbuthnot Corresp. 170; Southampton RO D/An 14,16-18. After his defeat, he was active in the formation of the South Hampshire Conservative Association, and he topped the poll at the general election of 1835. Foster, 144-5. Palmerston, defeated on this occasion, hinted darkly at voter intimidation, and made the specific allegation that Fleming had offered tithe abatements exclusively to his supporters. Palmerston-Sulivan Letters, 259-61. Rumours of his imminent elevation to the peerage proved to be unfounded, and he sat as a Conservative until his retirement in August 1842, when Peel, now prime minister, thanked him for his ‘cordial support’. K. Bourne, Palmerston, 546; Dod’s Parl. Companion (1835), 115; (1841), 152; Add. 40513, ff. 225-7. In the meantime, he continued to take a close interest in elections for Southampton where, in the rhetoric of a radical candidate nearly 20 years after his death, he ruled the electors ‘with a rod of iron’. Temple Patterson, ii. 39, 168. He co-ordinated the disruption of an anti-corn law meeting there in February 1842, and as a witness before an election committee later the same year successfully stonewalled an awkward line of questioning on local Conservative finances. Foster, 119-20; PP (1842), viii. 313-14.

In July 1843 Fleming embarked on a Mediterranean cruise, and from Naples informed Peel, 8 Apr. 1844, of his intention ‘to proceed ... to Greece or Constantinople, and I hope also afterwards Syria and Egypt’. Add. 40530, f. 419; 40542, f. 145. He got no further than Piraeus, Athens, where he died on board his yacht of ‘malignant fever’, 19 July 1844. The Times, 13 Aug. 1844; Vale, 180-1. An obituarist recorded that though he had cut down more than £300,000 worth of timber from his 15,000 acre Hampshire estate, he had ‘left the whole as full as the land will bear’. His expenditure in the Southampton area was estimated at £18,000 per annum, and he was ritually acclaimed as a good landlord, though at an unspecified date his summary dispensation of notices to quit had been deemed worthy of investigation by the bishop of Winchester. The Times, 13 Sept. 1844; Southampton RO D/S 1/1/22. By his will, dated 25 Nov. 1842, Fleming left the Romsey great tithes to his wife and referred to provision from the sale of clerical livings for his two younger sons. But their annuities and those granted to his daughters and other relatives were not covered by his personal estate. PROB 11/2006/755; IR26/1674/468. The cause of this difficulty was almost certainly his reported expenditure of £100,000 on North Stoneham, which was never completed. Gent. Mag. (1844), ii. 544; Vale, 180-1. In 1852 his eldest son John Browne Willis Fleming (1815-72), to whom the bulk of his landed property had passed, obtained a private Act of Parliament to permit the sale of entailed estate. South Stoneham became the residence of his second son Thomas James Willis Fleming (1819-90), Conservative Member for Winchester, 1864-5.