PERCY, see Algernon George, Algernon George, Lord Lovaine (1810-1899), of 8 Portman Square, Mdx.

Lovaine, an officer in the Guards, was returned for Bere Alston on his father’s interest at the general election of 1831, despite a local attempt to raise an opposition to him. He ‘avowed himself a moderate reformer, but declined answering any questions as to the extent to which he was disposed to reform’. It was subsequently alleged in a petition that he was still a minor on the day of the election and that his real birthday was about 29 May, but the petition was withdrawn. Plymouth Herald, 7 May 1831; CJ, lxxxvi. 603-5, 663. He is not known to have spoken in debate in this period. He divided against the second reading of the Grey ministry’s reintroduced reform bill, which proposed to disfranchise Bere Alston, 6 July 1831. He voted to use the 1831 census for the purpose of determining the disfranchisement schedules, 19 July, postpone consideration of Chippenham’s inclusion in schedule B, 27 July, and preserve the voting rights of non-resident freemen, 30 Aug., and against the bill’s passage, 21 Sept. He voted for the motion censuring the conduct of the Irish administration during the Dublin election, 23 Aug. He divided against the second reading of the revised reform bill, 17 Dec. 1831, the enfranchisement of Tower Hamlets, 28 Feb., and the third reading, 22 Mar. 1832. He voted against ministers on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan. 1832.

He unsuccessfully contested Exeter in 1841 and North Northumberland in 1847, but was returned for the latter in 1852 as a Protectionist and upholder of the ‘essentially Protestant character of our constitution’. Dod’s Parl. Companion (1852), 219. He held junior office in Lord Derby’s second ministry and, having succeeded as duke of Northumberland in 1867, was surprisingly appointed to the cabinet in 1878, a beneficiary of Disraeli’s penchant for aristocratic administrators; one of his colleagues found him ‘rather deaf and slow’. Cranbrook Diary ed. N.E. Johnson, 353-4. He became a member of the Catholic Apostolic or Irvingite sect, which his father-in-law had co-founded. Ann. Reg. (1899), Chron. p. 127. It was said of him that ‘nature had chosen perversely to mask his real qualities under a somewhat grim countenance and chilling manner’. Maxwell, Clarendon, ii. 347-8. He died in January 1899 and was succeeded by his elder son Henry George Percy (1846-1918), Conservative Member for North Northumberland, 1868-85.