HERON, Sir Robert, 2nd bt. (1765-1854), of Stubton Hall, nr. Grantham, Lincs.

Heron, who had a ‘thin saturnine face and Roman cast of countenance’, Sir F. Hill, Georgian Lincoln, 227. was an intelligent but quirky Lincolnshire squire, eternally frustrated in his ambition to represent his county in Parliament. A Whig in politics, who had joined Brooks’s as Member for Grimsby in 1813, he was returned on a vacancy for Peterborough on the Fitzwilliam interest in November 1819 and sat there for the remainder of his career. In his curious Notes, first published in 1850, in which he mixed political comments with trite observations on his menagerie of exotic creatures at his Stubton estate, he portrayed himself as a man of honour and independent principles, implacable in his detestation of Tory reaction and corruption, but critically detached in his view of the Whig leaders, who seem to have taken little notice of him. In the House in this period he was an occasional and usually terse speaker, but he was not a thick and thin attender and he rarely lingered at Westminster after early June.

At the general election of 1820 he thought better of renewing his candidature for the county, where his unsuccessful intervention in 1818 had damned him in the eyes of the Whig sitting Member Anderson Pelham. His bid to have proceedings adjourned from the ‘ferociously hostile’ county hall to the yard, where he hoped to find a more receptive audience, was blocked by the sheriff. At Peterborough he was reported to have ‘made a very forcible appeal’ for support for Queen Caroline’s rights. In the autumn he helped to promote an organized attempt to ensure the future electoral independence of Lincolnshire. Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury, 18 Feb., 10, 17 Mar., 20 Oct.; Drakard’s Stamford News, 10 Mar. 1820. He privately noted that ‘the violence of the ministerial party is beyond measure increased’ by the Cato Street outrage, but felt that their ‘calumnies ... upon ... those who support the Whig principles’ did not ‘make much impression on the country’. He voted with opposition on the civil list, 5, 8 May 1820, and on the 12th attacked ministers for paying lip service to ‘economy’ while ‘fixing the civil list at the highest rate at which it has ever been’. He divided against the appointment of an additional Scottish baron of exchequer, 15 May, for inquiry into military expenditure, 16 May, and against the aliens bill, 1 June. Irritated by the Whig leaders’ ‘far too great complaisance ... towards the new reign’ and ‘the repeated postponement of all important business’, and ‘weakened by a most severe dysentery of two days’, he got a fortnight’s leave, 19 June, and went to Stubton. He voted against the appointment of a secret committee on the queen’s conduct, 26 June, and for economies in revenue collection, 4 July, and again against the aliens bill, 7 July. He pressed for Sir William Manners† to be brought to book for his evasion of the Grantham election inquiry, 5, 7, 10 July 1820. The Times, 6 July 1820. He remained sickened by the opposition hierarchy’s ‘subservient feeling’ towards George IV, which, with ‘the hope of succeeding to a tottering administration’, had ‘made all attempts hopeless to oppose the extravagance of ministers’.

Heron was no less disgusted with the government’s ‘base subserviency ... in lending themselves apparently against their opinions, to the illegal persecution of the queen’; and at Sleaford sessions in January 1821 he discountenanced a loyal address got up by the Tory lord lieutenant Brownlow. He voted to condemn the omission of the queen’s name from the liturgy, 23, 26 Jan., and on 2 Feb., without consulting Tierney, the Whig leader, gave notice of a motion for the 8th for its restoration. The matter was subsequently taken out of his hands, but he voted for the opposition censure motion, 6 Feb., and for restoration to the liturgy, 13 Feb., and presented and endorsed petitions in support of Caroline, 12, 13 Feb. Ibid. 3, 13 Feb. 1821. On the address, 24 Jan., he called for interference to safeguard the liberal regime at Naples against ‘that most happy piece of royal blasphemy, the Holy Alliance’. He was given a month’s leave to deal with urgent private business, 26 Feb., and again, 19 Apr.; and he was absent from the division on the Catholic question, 28 Feb. He voted, when present, for economy, retrenchment and lower taxation; and at the end of the session noted that the zealous efforts of Hume and a few others had ‘forced upon ministers a very considerable reduction in all departments ... though very far below the necessities of the country’. He presented and supported distress petitions from Great Grimsby, Lincoln and Stamford, 3, 6 Apr. Ibid. 4, 7 Apr. 1821. He called Onslow’s plan to repeal the usury laws ‘a bill for more speedily ruining the young nobility and gentry’, 12 Apr., when he voted for the disfranchisement of ordnance officials and presented and endorsed an Alford parliamentary reform petition. Ibid. 13 Apr. 1821. He divided for inquiries into Peterloo, 16 May, and the administration of justice in Tobago, 6 June, and for the forgery punishment mitigation bill, 23 May. On 28 May he ‘protested against the unconstitutional increase of barracks in a time of profound peace’. He was a teller for the minority against the Postage Act amendment bill, 17 May. He considered Scarlett’s poor bill inadequate for its object and joined in calls for its postponement, 8 June 1821; Ibid. 9 June 1821. he was a conscientious guardian and visitor of a ‘house of industry’ at Stubton, though he was ‘no friend to the principle’.

He voted for the amendment to the address, 5 Feb., and doggedly against the suspension of habeas corpus in Ireland, 8 Feb. 1822. He divided for more extensive tax reductions to relieve distress, 11, 21 Feb., when he queried the cost of the coronation, Ibid. 22 Feb. 1822. supported Creevey’s attack on the 1817 Civil Offices Pensions Act, 27 Feb., and voted sporadically for economy, retrenchment and tax remissions after Easter. He opened proceedings at the Lincolnshire county distress meeting, 29 Mar., calling for a return to ‘an entire prohibition of the importation of foreign corn’ except in emergencies, and demanding substantial economies. Ibid. 6 Apr. 1822. In the House, 29 Apr., he said that the sufferers from distress in both agriculture and manufacturing were being fobbed off with ‘miserable expedients’. He blamed excessive taxation, aggravated by the unforeseen effects of the 1819 currency settlement, and saw no solution but ‘a reduction of the interest of the national debt’. Ibid. 30 Apr. 1822. At the end of the session he privately criticized Hume’s ‘eternal interference on every question ... in attempting trifling savings’, which had diverted attention from ‘more important questions’. He voted in protest at Sir Robert Wilson’s* dismissal from the army, 13 Feb., for inquiry into the Scottish burghs, 20 Feb., and for remission of Henry Hunt’s* gaol sentence, 24 Apr. 1822. Believing that government must sooner rather than later submit to the growing ‘popular voice’ for parliamentary reform, at the Lincolnshire county meeting, 19 Apr., he opposed the ballot and universal suffrage, but advocated ‘substantial and effective reform’ of the Commons. He voted for Russell’s reform motion, 25 Apr. 1822, after endorsing the Lincolnshire petition. Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury, 26 Apr. 1822.

He felt no sorrow at the suicide of Lord Londonderry*, ‘the constant supporter of foreign tyranny, and the bitter enemy of every liberal principle’. He voted against the appointment of a lieutenant-general of the ordnance in peacetime, 19 Feb., for large tax remissions, 28 Feb., and against the naval and military pensions bill, 18 Apr. 1823. He divided for repeal of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 16 Apr. He declared his support for Catholic claims, 17 Apr., when he was a teller for the minority for adjourning the debate. He voted for inquiry into the prosecution of the Dublin Orange rioters, 22 Apr., and chaired the investigation in committee of the whole House; the home secretary Peel praised his ‘impartiality and ability’, 27 May. He called for an end to the ‘degrading’ punishment of whipping, 30 Apr. He voted for inquiry into the state of Ireland, 12 May. He divided for inquiry into the parliamentary franchise, 20 Feb., having promoted and chaired the thinly attended Lincolnshire reform meeting, 2 Jan., encouraged by the example set in Yorkshire. At the better supported meeting of 26 Mar. he deplored extremism, advocated triennial parliaments and a householder franchise, expressed continued doubts about annual parliaments and the ballot and attacked Lord Sidmouth’s pension and the ‘cold-blooded’ Londonderry’s collaboration with ‘the tyrants of Europe’. The Times, 14 Dec. 1822, 9 Jan., 28 Mar. 1823. He endorsed the petition in the House, 22 Apr., voted for Russell’s reform motion, 24 Apr., and reform in Scotland, 2 June 1823. While privately admitting the failure of the reform campaign in the country, he reckoned it was ‘gaining ground’ in the Commons. He credited Robinson, the new chancellor of the exchequer, with giving ‘some satisfaction to the country by a diminution of taxes’; but he remained suspicious of Canning, Londonderry’s successor as foreign secretary, doubting the sincerity of his professions of support for ‘liberal ideas’. He subsequently came to believe that Canning had wanted to intervene on behalf of Spanish liberals and conceded that his ‘internal policy is certainly far superior to anything the Tories have ever given us before’. When Anderson Pelham succeeded his father as Lord Yarborough in September 1823 Heron ‘felt in some measure bound to offer’ for Lincolnshire, although he was ‘not in a situation to incur the heavy expense of a contest’. The unforgiving Yarborough, who alleged that Heron had ‘materially hurt the old Whig interest’ in 1818 and was widely disliked, would have none of it and backed Sir William Amcotts Ingilby*. Heron, who deluded himself that ‘had I persevered, I might have been successful’, withdrew and initially seemed to support Ingilby, but, later claiming to suspect him of covert Toryism, he soon turned against him, tried unsuccessfully to persuade Gilbert John Heathcote* to stand and in the end gave vigorous support to the independents’ reluctant nominee Sir John Thorold, who was overwhelmingly defeated. Personal spite seems to have motivated him at least as much as principle. Fitzwilliam mss 113/1; 114/2-5; vol. 731, p. 57; Lincs. AO, Ancaster mss 3 Anc 9/10/4; XIII/B/4a-e; The Times, 26, 27 Nov., 1, 4 Dec. 1823; Lincs. Election Procs. (1824), 20-22. R.J. Olney, Rural Society and County Government in 19th Cent. Lincs. 148.

Heron opposed Martin’s motion for inquiry into bull-baiting as ‘a petty and trumpery’ attack on ‘the amusements of the people’, 25 Feb. 1824. Next day he voted for reform of Edinburgh’s representation. On 27 Feb. he spoke and voted against the ordnance estimates and opposed and was a minority teller against interference with the usury laws; he again divided against this, 17 Feb. 1825. He voted to accuse lord chancellor Eldon of a breach of privilege, 1 Mar., and for repeal of the window tax, 2 Mar. 1824, when, ‘as a country magistrate’, he welcomed Hume’s call for information on their activities. He was forced to drop his motion for leave for a bill to end the need for military officers to pay fees for the renewal of their commissions on a demise of the crown. 4 Mar. Back at Westminster after Easter, he voted to reduce the Irish militia, 5 May, for inquiries into the Irish church establishment, 6 May, and the state of Ireland, 11 May, and for proper use of Irish first fruits revenues, 25 May. He divided for a repeal of assessed taxes, 10 May, and suggested an amendment to the savings banks bill, 18 May. The Times, 19 May 1824. He presented a Peterborough petition condemning the prosecution of the Methodist missionary John Smith in Demerara, 1 June, and voted in that sense, 11 June 1824. Ibid. 2 June 1824.

He divided steadily against the bill to suppress the Catholic Association in February 1825, and on the 15th ‘defended the people of England from the calumnious charge of being hostile to the Catholic concession’. Ibid. 16 Feb. 1825. He voted for relief, 1 Mar., 21 Apr., 10 May, and presented favourable petitions, 19 Apr. He was privately not happy with Burdett’s ‘doubtful’ compromise of the question and attributed its defeat in the Lords ‘chiefly ... to the violent opposition of Lord Liverpool’. He wanted Stuart Wortley’s game bill to be limited to the legalization of sales, 17 Feb. He was a teller for the majority for the St. Katharine’s Docks bill, 22 Feb., but voted against the Leith Docks bill, 20 May, and presented a petition against the Greenock Docks bill, 2 May. Ibid. 3 May 1825. His own measure to amend the regulations governing public sewers got nowhere. Ibid. 23 Feb. 1823; CJ, lxxx. 111, 147, 533. He brought up a constituency petition in favour of the county courts bill, 25 Feb. The Times, 26 Feb. 1825. He voted for revision of the corn laws, 28 Apr., repeal of the window tax, 17 May, in Brougham’s minority of 29 for making puisne judges immoveable, 20 May, and against the duke of Cumberland’s grant, 27, 30 May, 6 June 1825. At the close of the session he reflected that ‘the more liberal commercial system introduced by ministers and the acknowledgement, by Canning, of the new South American states’, had ‘weakened the opposition, and even diminished the inclination to oppose’.

Consulted at the end of 1825 ‘on a proposed association of the agricultural interests in Lincolnshire’, he ‘did not much approve’, but unwisely ‘advised a county meeting’ in the depths of winter. It was ‘miserably attended’, 23 Dec., when he carried ‘a moderate petition’ for better protection for domestic farmers, though he praised the government’s current ‘liberal course of policy’ on free trade. The association was duly formed, but Heron resolved to keep out of it, because ‘I neither agree with them in approving the present corn laws, nor approve their applying the terms of gross misrepresentation to their antagonists, on a fair subject of difference of opinion’. Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury, 30 Dec. 1825. In the event, he voted against the government’s emergency corn importation proposal, 11 May 1826, though on the 17th he suggested that it would be largely inoperative, while criticizing the agricultural Members for tamely acquiescing in it. He voted against ministers on the Jamaican slave trials, 2 Mar., and the army establishment, 3, 7 Mar., declaring on the first occasion that ‘every shilling that went to the support of volunteer cavalry [was] thrown away’. He believed that the government’s measures to deal with the financial crisis missed the point by ignoring ‘the forcible diminution of the national debt’; and on 7 Mar., when he was in two small minorities against the promissory notes bill, he asserted that ‘the only measure which would give relief to the country was an immediate and extensive curtailment of the public expenditure’. He voted for the disfranchisement of non-resident Irish borough voters, 9 Mar., and Russell’s reform motion, 27 Apr. He voted to abolish flogging, 10 Mar. On 21 Apr. he opposed the infliction on Ireland of ‘the additional misery of a system of poor laws’. He threatened to bring in a bill to legalize the sale of game, 4 May, but did not do so. The Times, 5 May 1826. He was in the minority for investigation of a complaint of curbs on press freedom in India, 9 May 1826.

Heron’s difference of opinion with his friend Lord Milton*, Lord Fitzwilliam’s son, on the corn laws was openly acknowledged and did not affect his re-election for Peterborough in June 1826, when he condemned the Peterloo massacre, advocated Catholic relief, the abolition of slavery and reform and demanded enhanced agricultural protection. Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette, 27 June 1826. In the county he opposed the adoption by the independents of the increasingly radical William Augustus Johnson*, whose candidature came to nothing and, in Heron’s view, irreparably damaged the cause. He spoke and was a teller for the minorities of 39 and 15 against the Clarences’ annuity bill, 2, 16 Mar. 1827. He voted for Catholic relief, 6 Mar., and privately blamed its unexpected defeat on ‘the zealous interference’ in the 1826 elections of the ‘experienced jobber’ Lushington, secretary to the treasury. He voted for inquiry into Leicester corporation’s electoral malpractice, 15 Mar., and for information on the Lisburn Orange procession, 29 Mar. He supported the spring guns bill, 23 Mar. He was not in the opposition minority for supplies to be withheld until the ministerial crisis following Lord Liverpool’s stroke was settled, 30 Mar. He divided against the corn bill, 2 Apr. He was ‘anxious to support’ Canning as premier, ‘less from personal reliance on his character, than from an earnest desire to exclude those [Tories] who are opposed to him’; but he felt that Brougham went too far in throwing himself ‘into the arms’ of the ‘cunning’ Canning. He took his seat ‘on the left hand of the Speaker’, with Milton, the Russells and ‘many more staunch Whigs, ready to support ministers when we can, but unwilling to pledge ourselves to them’. He voted for the disfranchisement of Penryn, 28 May 1827.

Heron initially hoped that the duke of Wellington, at the head of an administration shorn of the ‘violent jobbers’ and supported by the Huskissonites, had ‘seen the necessity of acting on better principles’, though he was worried by the aspect of foreign affairs in early 1828. He called for abolition of the ‘worse than useless’ yeomanry corps, 25 Feb. Next day he presented petitions and voted for repeal of the Test Acts, and he divided for Catholic relief, 12 May. He was in the opposition minorities against the financial provision for Canning’s family, 13 May, and for information on civil list pensions, 20 May. That day he acquiesced in the introduction of Poulett Thomson’s bill to amend the usury laws, but he remained hostile to their total repeal. On 21 May 1828 he supported Estcourt’s licensing bill because village alehouses encouraged ‘profligacy among the labouring classes’. He welcomed Catholic emancipation, a ‘great and salutary measure’ which he attributed to ‘the just fears of ministers’, though he considered it ‘ungracious to consent to the immediate disqualification of the 40s. freeholders’ and ‘irksome ... to be obliged to consent to exclude’ O’Connell; he was in the minority on this, 18 May, having voted for emancipation, 6 Mar., and paired for it, 30 Mar. 1829. He disputed the balance of county opinion on the issue with Waldo Sibthorp, Tory Member for Lincoln, 16 Feb., 12, 16, 20 Mar., praised Peel’s ‘noble conduct’, 17 Feb., and presented favourable petitions, 4 Mar. He divided for the transfer of East Retford’s seats to Birmingham, 5 May (and again, 5 Mar. 1830). He liked the government’s proposal to improve the regulations governing justices of the peace, 11 May 1829.

When the sheriff of Lincolnshire refused to call a county meeting to petition for repeal of the beer and malt taxes, Heron and three other magistrates arranged one for 8 Jan. 1830, when he moved a censure of the sheriff and argued that ‘long, decided and radical economy’, especially in the military establishment, would pay for the repeal. He was satisfied with the outcome, though ‘a good deal ashamed’ of his ‘coadjutors of the ... [Ultra] faction, with their tirades against free trade, toleration, etc.’, and felt that it would have been wiser to confine the campaign to the malt tax. The Times, 11 Jan.; Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury, 15 Jan. 1830. In the House, 22 and 26 Feb. 1830, when he endorsed the petition, he repeated his demand for ‘a system of rigid retrenchment and economy’. He voted in that sense, 22 Feb., 1, 12, 22 Mar. He divided for the enfranchisement of Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, 23 Feb., and condemned the recent ex-officio prosecutions of the press for libel, 2 Mar. He spoke up for the Irish labourers who habitually went to Lincolnshire to assist in harvesting, 9 Mar. On the 26th he moved to get rid of the pensions of £400 and £500 paid to sons of Lords Bathurst and Melville, causing a commotion when he referred to the late Lord Melville’s ‘equivocal services’ as virtual viceroy of Scotland in Pitt’s heyday. He carried the question by 139-121, inflicting on the ministry its first defeat, and was widely applauded. Northants. RO, Agar Ellis diary, 26 Mar. [1830]; M.D. George, Cat. of Pol. and Personal Satires, xi. 16076, 16077. He was granted a month’s leave to deal with urgent private business, 30 Mar. On his return, he voted for abolition of the Irish lord lieutenancy, 11 May, regulation of Irish first fruits revenues, 18 May, for information on privy councillors’ emoluments, 14 May, and the civil government of Canada, 25 May, and for reform, 28 May. He divided for Jewish emancipation, 17 May, and condemned the northern roads bill, 20 May 1830. Summing up ‘a most extraordinary session, there being no man who has authority to keep the House of Commons in order’, he wrote:

Ministers have no secure majority, for whenever the old opposition and the Ultras can agree on any subject, they must be left in a minority. The duke of Wellington has certainly done more for the country than any former minister, but it is not enough to meet the necessities of the times; the country begins to be tired of his despotism ... The gratitude the old opposition has felt for the carrying the Catholic bill has more than once saved the administration; but this is fast wearing out, and their only safeguard now is the fear of their successors.

Heron, who rejoiced at the death of the ‘faithless, worthless, heartless’ George IV and believed William IV to be ‘a foolish, well meaning man’ in Wellington’s pocket, was prevented by a ‘recent severe indisposition’ from canvassing his constituents at the 1830 general election, which ‘passed off very satisfactorily’ at Peterborough. Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette, 31 July 1830; Wentworth Woodhouse mun. WWM/F132/25. Aware that the elections had been ‘unfavourable’ to the government (who of course listed him among their ‘foes’), he now felt that reform, once an ‘almost hopeless’ prospect, was ‘certain and approaching’ and that ‘the longer delayed, the more it will be radical’. After Huskisson’s death Heron acknowledged his abilities but deplored the ‘extravagant praise’ wasted on a man of ‘such profligate public conduct’. At a county meeting called to petition for economies and tax reductions, including repeal of the malt duty, 8 Oct., he condemned the Ultras, ‘a faction ... with Lord Eldon at its head and Michael Sadler* at the tail, and aided by the virtues of the duke of Cumberland’, who were fomenting unrest in Ireland. Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury, 15 Oct. 1830. He presented 15 anti-slavery petitions, 12 and 15 Nov. 1830, when he helped to vote the ministry out of office on the civil list.

He was confident that their successors, mostly ‘honest and able men’, would ‘redeem their pledges’ for ‘parliamentary reform ... retrenchment, and non-interference’, though he was concerned that the impatience of the ‘extreme radicals’ might upset the apple cart. He advocated reform at the county meeting, 28 Jan., and endorsed its petition in the House, 26 Feb. 1831, when he approved its call for adoption of the secret ballot but urged ministers to make this a separate measure. The Times, 3 Feb. 1831. He had belatedly presented and supported the Lincolnshire petition of the previous autumn, 8 Feb. He presented one from Epworth in favour of the ministerial reform bill, 21 Mar., voted for its second reading the next day and was in the minority against Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. At the ensuing general election he denounced ‘the rage and vexation of the anti-reformers in the House of Commons, and the disorderly conduct of the Tory Lords in the Upper House’. Ibid. 7 May 1831. Committed ‘body and soul’ to the measure, he tried unsuccessfully to persuade Gilbert Heathcote to offer for the county, where in the event he nominated, by request, Yarborough’s son, whom he had helped to persuade to stand in order to frustrate Johnson; he backed Heathcote at Boston. Ancaster mss XIII/B/6i-n, q, r; The Times, 11 May 1831. Heron voted for the second reading of the re-introduced reform bill, 6 July, and at least twice against the adjournment, 12 July 1831; but he evidently took a pair for about the next four weeks. He was present to vote for the combination of Rochester with Chatham and Strood, 9 Aug., and the enfranchisement of Merthyr as part of a district, 10 Aug., when he refuted Waldo Sibthorp’s assertions that the bill would annihilate the agricultural interest. He said that Boston would be a ‘most inconvenient’ polling place for the southern division of Lincolnshire, 12 Aug., and he later approved the choice of Sleaford, 24 Jan. 1832. He voted against the enfranchisement of £50 tenants-at-will, 18 Aug., for the third reading, 19 Sept., and passage of the bill, 21 Sept., and for the second reading of the Scottish measure, 23 Sept. 1831. He voted against government in favour of disarming the Irish yeomanry, 11 Aug., but with them in the first division on the Dublin election controversy, 23 Aug. He voted for the motion of confidence in them, 10 Oct. 1831.

‘After much consideration’, Heron promoted a county meeting to address the king in support of the government, 18 Nov. 1831. He anticipated significant ‘improvements’ in the new reform bill, attacked ‘demagogues’ who ‘thwarted public business’, but conceded that any republicans returned to the House would be ‘a set off against despotism’. Although an alternative ‘Huntite’ series of resolutions was also carried, Heron considered the affair ‘as attended with complete success’. The Times, 21 Nov. 1831. He paired for the second reading of the revised reform bill, 17 Dec. 1831, Ibid. 22 Dec. 1831. but was present to vote to go into committee on it, 20 Jan. 1832. He argued that the proposed division of Lincolnshire would not create ‘nomination’ constituencies, 24 Jan.; but he feared that the enfranchisement of tenants-at-will might ultimately have that effect in other counties. His attempt to expunge the Chandos clause, 1 Feb., was crushed by 272-32. He voted steadily for the other details of the measure and divided for its third reading, 22 Mar. He voted with ministers on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan. (he paired for them on this issue, 12, 16 July), and relations with Portugal, 9 Feb. He was privately critical of the king’s ‘weakness’ during the crisis of May; and on Lord Grey’s restoration to power relied on ‘the resolution of an enlightened people’ and ‘the support of a reformed House of Commons’ to frustrate the future machinations of the Tory ‘faction which has so long misruled the country to its own profit’. He voted against a conservative amendment to the Scottish reform bill, 1 June, but on 13 June 1832 he tried to deprive Dublin University of one of its two Members; he got 97 votes against 147.

Heron, who described the first reformed House of Commons as ‘a very honest, but a very ignorant and a most disagreeable one’, retired from Parliament, at the age of 81, in 1847. Four years later, closing his Notes, he boasted:

I can reflect on my conduct, both public and private, with honest satisfaction; and as in nearly forty years [sic] spent in the House of Commons, I have neither received nor asked any favour from any administration, I think the merit of disinterestedness cannot be refused me.

He had unwisely described Croker as ‘one of the most determined jobbers’, and Croker avenged himself by savaging the work in the Quarterly Review as a ‘farrago of nonsense and libel’ written by a ‘crazy simpleton’. Quarterly Rev. xc (1852), 206-25. Macaulay could only hope that Heron was ‘a better zoologist than politician’. Macaulay Letters, v. 159. He died suddenly in the library at Stubton in May 1854. By his will, dated 14 Jan. 1854, he devised the estate to one George Neville, his residuary legatee, and directed his executors to sell the rest of his real estate. PROB 11/2202/923; IR 26/2001/1072.