GOUGH CALTHORPE, Hon. Arthur (1796-1836), of 13 Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square, Mdx.

The life of Gough Calthorpe, the 1st Baron Calthorpe’s youngest son, His father left him £7,000 in his will in 1798, to be paid on his coming of age (PROB 11/1306/316). was blighted by illness, most notably recurrent deafness. This may explain his apparent inability to settle to any activity as a young man: his sojourn at Oxford lasted just a year, while in 1823 he was reported to be studying law, but he evidently did not pursue it. Hants RO, Calthorpe mss 26M62/F/C 60, 193. Similar incapacity marked his parliamentary career, which began when he was returned on a vacancy for Bramber in 1825 on his brother the 3rd baron’s interest. He is not known to have spoken in debate. He divided for Catholic relief, 21 Apr., 10 May 1825. His other recorded votes in this Parliament were with the Whig opposition to Lord Liverpool’s ministry, for revision of the corn laws, 28 Apr. 1825, 18 Apr. 1826, and inquiry into delays in chancery, 7 June 1825. At the 1826 general election he exchanged seats with his brother Frederick and was returned for Hindon. That autumn he travelled in Ireland, from where he complained that he was ‘by no means so strong since I came’ and ‘very much deafer than before’. Frederick subsequently reported that his brother would miss the opening of the new Parliament, as his doctor had recommended that he should remain in the Irish coastal town of Howth, ‘for the benefit of the air in consequence of a severe bowel complaint that he had had and also in the hope of the air improving his ears. He writes rather out of spirits and says, poor fellow, he can be of no use ... to anybody’. While in Ireland, his Evangelically inspired support for ecclesiastical reform led to his being considered ‘the very bathos of low church’. Ibid. F/C 19, 58. Following his return he divided for Catholic relief, 6 Mar. 1827, 12 May 1828, and repeal of the Test Acts, 26 Feb. 1828. Either he or his brother voted for inquiry into the Irish church, 24 June. He divided against extending East Retford’s franchise to Bassetlaw freeholders, 21 Mar. 1828. In February 1829 Planta, the patronage secretary in the duke of Wellington’s ministry, listed him as being ‘with government’ for Catholic emancipation, but no trace of parliamentary activity has been found for that session. He divided for the enfranchisement of Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, 23 Feb., and to transfer East Retford’s seats to Birmingham, where his family held property, 5 Mar. 1830. He voted with the revived Whig opposition for reduction of the admiralty estimates, 22 Mar., a revision of taxation, 25 Mar., deduction of the lieutenant-general’s salary from the ordnance estimates, 29 Mar., and to condemn British interference in Portugal’s internal affairs, 28 Apr. He voted to abolish the death penalty for forgery, 24 May 1830. He retired at the dissolution that summer. He died ‘near Paris’ in March 1836; no will has been found. Gent. Mag. (1836), i. 447.