STRICKLAND, George (1782-1874), of Hildenley and Boyton, Yorks. and Parliament Street, Mdx.

Strickland, though a hypochondriac of a sickly disposition, believed he was destined to live a long life since he was ‘obliged to be careful’. ‘I am never a very strong person’, he told his confidant James Brougham*, ‘and never could learn to eat and drink like you and the duke of York’. Brougham mss, Strickland to J. Brougham, 10 Jan. 1827, 24 July 1828. His family were supposedly a cadet branch of the Stricklands of Sizergh, Westmorland. William Strickland, Member for Scarborough, 1558-86, purchased Boynton after returning from voyages of discovery in the New World during his youth. His grandson, also William, was created a baronet in 1641, and represented Hedon and the East Riding, and all the successive baronets down to the fifth, Sir George, this Member’s grandfather, sat in the House. Strickland’s finances were tight during his early adult life and led to frequent disputes with his father-in-law, the Rev. Charles Constable, over his marriage settlement, which were exacerbated by his wife’s long term ‘nervous’ illness. Matters came to a head in 1828 when, as he explained to Brougham, his wife, who had been suffering ‘strange nervous attacks since she was a girl’, became delirious and plunged her hand into the fire, seriously burning herself. Strickland packed her off to Constable to convalesce and determined that she should never again be left alone with any of their children until she was cured, nor would he live with her until then. They were estranged for the next 37 years. Charged by Constable with ‘unkindness’, he told Brougham, ‘as to old Constable, I care nothing about him, and thanks to my resolute plans of economy ... I feel very independent of his cursed money’. Ibid. 17 Oct., 18 Nov. 1828.

In public life Strickland was principled and an entertaining public speaker, but not without his critics. ‘With all respect to so great a reformer and patriot’, Robert Price* informed Lord Milton*, 15 Dec. 1830, ‘I have always thought ... Strickland to be a disagreeable personage’. Fitzwilliam mss. His political activism had been initiated, he informed the House, 23 Feb. 1832, by Peterloo. He signed the requisition for the Yorkshire county meeting to discuss the incident, at which he spoke, 14 Oct. 1819, alleging that the local Tories were insincere in their support for inquiry. Leeds Mercury, 9, 16 Oct.; Yorks. Gazette, 16 Oct. 1819. At the 1820 general election he seconded the nomination of the Whig Milton. Leeds Mercury, 25 Mar. 1820. Strickland’s father entrusted him to communicate his opinion to Milton on the proposed transfer of Grampound’s seats to Yorkshire, 31 May, while Earl Fitzwilliam, Milton’s father, asked his son to canvass the opinion of ‘trusted people’, including Strickland, on the propriety of holding a county meeting in support of Queen Caroline, 9 Nov. 1820. Fitzwilliam mss 102/11. Seconding a proposal for a pro-reform petition at a county meeting, 22 Jan. 1823, Strickland argued that it was necessary to restore the confidence between the people and government and scoffed at the discussion about what reform ought to consist of:

This great cause is not a new one, it has agitated men’s minds for nearly a century, and we are now to be asked, what is meant by the term parliamentary reform? Its meaning is written in the distress of the country. Leeds Mercury, 25 Jan. 1823.

That September he was appointed to a committee to investigate the requirements for an extension to York Castle gaol and wrote an open letter to Henry Brougham* outlining his opposition to the demolition of Clifford’s Tower to enable an enlargement to take place. When the proposals were finally made they included no alteration to the tower, and the extension that was begun in March 1826 incorporated this into its plans. Yorks. Gazette, 25 Mar. 1826. On 7 Feb. 1825 Strickland wrote to James Brougham in support of his brother’s speech on Catholic emancipation at the opening of the session, observing, somewhat resignedly, that he was leading ‘an idle, farming, fishing, hunting, kind of life’. Brougham mss. During the rumours of dissolution that autumn, Milton received intelligence that Lord Morpeth*, the Whigs’ preferred candidate for Yorkshire at the next general election, would not receive the financial backing of his relation, the 6th duke of Devonshire. On 18 Dec. Milton informed Lord Althorp* that ‘if this is really to be the case, it will be far better to withdraw him and press forward Strickland’. Add. 76379. Milton joined Strickland and other leading Yorkshire Whigs at Wheatley, the home of Sir William Cooke, the following week to discuss the situation, where it was decided to press ahead with a requisition to Morpeth, which Strickland unsuccessfully urged him to accept, 25 Dec. 1825. Castle Howard mss. Thereafter Strickland was repeatedly spoken of as a candidate, but in the event did not come forward. Ibid. Abercromby to Carlisle, 30 Dec. 1825. Instead he chaired the Whig committee at the 1826 general election and seconded Milton at the nomination, when he denounced the corn laws as ‘injurious to the manufacturing part of the country’ and the game laws as a ‘remnant of feudal tyranny’, and argued in favour of Catholic emancipation. E. Baines, Yorks. Election 1826, p. 74. That December, when he was suffering from a ‘violent inflammation upon the lungs’, he predicted to James Brougham that the war in Portugal would result in Britain keeping troops there ‘till France withdraws hers from Spain’ and hoped that Henry Brougham, who had been ‘long enough in opposition’, would ‘shake off old Hume and his Greek loan, and join the Canning part of administration’. At Brougham’s request he took a £100 share in the new London University, but thought it money ‘thrown away’. Brougham mss, Strickland to J. Brougham, 16 Dec. 1826.

Anticipating the formation of a Canning ministry following Lord Liverpool’s incapacity, Strickland expressed a desire to visit London in the spring of 1827 to ‘see how the Whigs look’, having ‘never expected’ to see them ‘in office again’. Ibid. 10 Jan. 1827. In December 1827 he published a Discourse on the Poor Laws of England and Scotland, on the state of the Poor in Ireland and on Emigration, addressed to Lord Landsdowne, home secretary in the short-lived Goderich ministry, in which he asserted that the poor laws encouraged population growth, increased the poor rates, and thereby augmented ‘the burthens of the landowners’, while ‘the advance of manufactures, and the success of mercantile speculation, all tend to the same result; a predominating influence of the mercantile classes over the landed proprietors’, which he feared would lead to a collapse of the aristocracy. To prevent such social calamity he recommended repealing much of the existing poor laws, so that they ‘expressly provided alone for the lame, impotent, old, blind, and such others, being poor and not able to work’, and called for the establishment of a relief system and public education in Ireland. He reacted to reports that Henry Brougham was to be made master of the rolls by telling James that it had ‘always appeared to me a very hard case that a man ... should be excluded from high judicial situations on account of party politics’. He continued:

He ought to be chancellor, if that cannot be, then he ought not to refuse the rolls. He is the only person who could effect any reforms in the state of the law ... If he waits for a pure Whig administration, he must die labouring in an inferior situation ... The Tories who are to govern the country must be very unlike the old stamp of Tories. They must be reformers, and economists of public money, and very like Whigs, similar except in name. Ibid. 30 July 1828.

He advised Brougham that the establishment of Brunswick Clubs in Yorkshire had attained only ‘partial success’, 4 Nov. 1828. Ibid. 4 Nov. 1828. As Constable refused to pay him the agreed amounts under his marriage settlement, and even failed sometimes to pay anything for short periods, Strickland’s income by now was only £900 per annum. Ibid. 18 Nov. 1828. He had little desire to re-establish his home life with his wife as he feared ‘incessant interference’ from his in-laws. He confided to Brougham, 7 Apr. 1829, that Constable’s ‘only chance of getting Mary and myself together is to act honourably, and that he will not do’. Brougham, one of the trustees of the settlement, did his best for his friend, but was able to bring him little satisfaction. Strickland’s father, too, tried to mediate, but to no avail. When Strickland wished to send his children to school, he could not afford the fees. Constable had promised to pay, but only on condition that Strickland’s second son lived at Wassand with him and his other children spent their holidays there. Strickland refused the conditions. Constable threatened to take the matter to the courts in March 1830 and Strickland sought the advice of Henry Brougham, Daniel Sykes, a lawyer and Whig Member for Hull, and Althorp. His wife’s dementia had not improved and she had sent him a series of letters in which she conceded on the one hand that he had always treated her with ‘kindness and compassion’, but on the other likened him to ‘the demonical possession described in the New Testament’. He sought a loan from his father in June 1830, but was refused, whereupon he contemplated emigrating. Ibid. 7 Apr. 1829, 24 Mar., 30 May, 4, 26 June 1830.

In the aftermath of the Wellington ministry’s concession of Catholic emancipation Strickland told James Brougham, 4 July 1829, that ‘if Wellington imitates Pitt and continues sole minister of England it will shorten his life’. However, he thought the Tories too powerful to allow any power or patronage to the Whigs, whose only chance was that the Tories ‘render themselves so contemptible that measures of reform and retrenchment may be carried against them’. He concluded that Wellington was frustrated because ‘whatever he may have done with Huskisson, he cannot have Henry [Brougham] or Hume cashiered, or tied up and flogged, whenever he likes’. Ibid. 4 July 1829. In November 1829 he asked James Brougham if anything could be done ‘with [James] Abercromby* or through some other means’ to assist Morpeth, whose relations had again refused to pledge financial support for his candidacy for Yorkshire at a future election. Ibid. 14 Nov. 1829. Following the confirmation of Milton’s retirement from Yorkshire in May 1830, Strickland participated in meetings to adopt Morpeth as the Whigs’ first candidate, but was initially hostile to suggestions that Henry Brougham might start as their second, as ‘not being a Yorkshire man would not do, and ... such an attempt would create jealousies’. Wentworth Woodhouse mun. G3/23, Strickland to Milton, 31 July 1830. At a full meeting of the county’s Whigs in York in July, however, he was instrumental in persuading the country gentlemen of the East and North Ridings to join the commercial men of the West Riding in supporting Brougham, in order to preserve unanimity. Ibid.; Leeds Mercury, 27 July 1830 He served on both of the ensuing election committees and accompanied Brougham on his early canvass of the West Riding, from where Brougham reported to Lord Holland, 31 July:

I assure you the difficulty is to keep them from setting up Strickland with me. He was actually proposed two or three times on our progress, and not by mobs ... It was necessary to prevent this as it would have driven Morpeth to the wall. Add. 51562.

Following Brougham’s acceptance of a peerage and the woolsack in the new Grey administration, Strickland backed Sykes for the vacancy, but reluctantly accepted the candidacy of Sir John Johnstone. At a meeting of the Whigs, 2 Dec., he regretted that ‘the commercial interests of this country are not adequately represented; the Members whom we return being all closely connected with the highest branches of the aristocracy and church’ and hoped that Johnstone would support a thorough reform bill, which gave no compensation to borough proprietors, and the secret ballot, without which it was ‘quite impossible that anything like freedom of election can exist’. The Times, 26 Nov.; Yorks. Gazette, 4 Dec.; Leeds Mercury, 4 Dec. 1830. When the sheriff asked if there were any other candidates at the nomination, 7 Dec. 1830, Strickland stepped forward, saying that he had read reports of Johnstone’s speeches before the Leeds Cloth Halls which had ‘rendered it impossible’ for him to continue to support him, as he was not a thorough reformer and had not made up his mind on the ballot. He then proposed Sykes, prompting a bitter debate, but Sykes refused to stand, whereupon Strickland, responding to the clamour of the crowd, said he would be willing to do so if nominated. As none of the Whigs on the hustings would perform the task, two freeholders obliged. Strickland won the show of hands and Johnstone demanded a poll. Strickland then asked the crowd how the ballot could be considered ‘unEnglish’, as Johnstone had alleged, when it was used for the election of a registrar in the West Riding, but Edward Baines, editor of the Leeds Mercury, pointed out that this was not the case, as he often published the final list of voters and their votes. As no preparations for a poll had been made, the contest was adjourned until the following day. Strickland told Lord Brougham, 12 Dec., that ‘Baines and the Leeds party and Dan Sykes, almost on their knees, begged me to retire’. Brougham mss, Strickland to Lord Brougham, 12 Dec. [1830]. He did so after the poll had only been open for a few hours, with the votes at 361 to Johnstone against Strickland’s 104. At the declaration Strickland said that he had received many promises of support, especially from the West Riding, and would have kept the poll open longer if he could have been sure of success. He emphasized to Brougham that he had not retired at the behest of the Leeds delegation, but because ‘there was no time for anything’. Brougham had offered him £1,000 towards his expenses and Strickland hoped to be able to call on it again at a future election. Indeed, he thought his giving up had been a ‘great mistake’, despite the fact that his father had taken ‘the part of the squires, in fury’ and had had ‘his doors ... shut against me’. In his parting address, 15 Dec., he denied that there had been any preconceived plan, claiming that he had acted purely in order to advance the cause of reform, and promised to come forward at the next opportunity. Ibid. 12, 15 Dec. 1830. Confiding to James Brougham that he felt ‘ill used by some who ought to have been my friends’, 22 Dec. 1830, he complained that he had done more than anyone to return Morpeth, who ‘now despises my advice and is doing the greatest of follies, having gone along with Sir John Johnstone [on] a canvassing tour of the West Riding’, adding, ‘be assured this is working well for myself and Sykes’. Ibid. 22 Dec. 1830. On 27 Mar. 1831 the newly formed Leeds Association successfully requisitioned Strickland to stand at the next opportunity. In his address he promised to support an effective reform, economy, the abolition of slavery, the extinction of all monopolies and Hobhouse’s proposed factory reform bill. Leeds Mercury Extraordinary, 27 Apr. 1831.

At the 1831 general election he duly came forward as a reformer, telling the crowds at the hustings that the ‘best judges of public virtue and senatorial talent’ were not ‘an old wall at Aldborough, a summer house at Gatton, or a mound at Old Sarum’. He was returned unopposed with three other Whigs. Leeds Mercury, 7 May 1831. An assiduous attender and keen contributor to debate, Strickland hardly let a day go by without making some comment on proceedings. In his maiden speech, 27 June 1831, he sympathized with O’Connell’s criticism of the Irish yeomanry, which was ‘not a good species of force’, promised to support any motion O’Connell cared to bring forward to disband them and urged the creation of a police force for Ireland. He presented a petition from Hedon and Holderness calling for the two to be united to return two Members, 4 July. On 6 July he welcomed the reintroduced ministerial reform bill’s abolition of nomination boroughs and extension of the franchise, denied Wetherell’s charge that those pledged to support it were not free agents, insisting that he was at least as unshackled as Wetherell, who represented only ‘a few decayed cottages’, but expressed a fear that the division of counties would increase the influence of landed proprietors and create ‘nomination counties’ and regretted that some anomalies would remain, wishing that ‘the bill could have gone a little further’. He voted for the second reading that day, against the adjournment, 12 July, and gave general support to its details, though he campaigned steadily for more Members to be given to Yorkshire and even contemplated moving an amendment to give the East Riding four, only to abandon it out of ‘respect’ for the conduct of ministers, 22 July. He welcomed Milton’s suggestion that the boroughs in Schedule D ought to return two Members each rather than one, as it afforded a means of increasing the representation of Yorkshire, and denied that such a course would destroy the balance between commerce and agriculture, 4 Aug. He spoke and voted with government on the Dublin election controversy, 23 Aug., and was in the minority against issuing a writ for the Liverpool by-election, 5 Sept. That day he agreed with Thomas Houldsworth that it would be impossible to poll the West Riding in two days, and although he approved the principle of limiting the duration of elections, he thought an exception ought to be made in this case. Presenting a Manchester petition for weekly tenants paying £10 annual rent to be given the vote, 7 Sept., he observed that the petitioners’ willingness to forego their request, if it should impede progress, was proof of working class support for the bill. When Wetherell renewed his criticism of Members pledged to the bill, 15 Sept., Strickland took it as a personal attack and again sought to justify his stance. He concluded by saying that he thought ‘no good can arise from these kind of personal observations’, but they engaged in a few more exchanges. He voted for the reform bill’s passage, 21 Sept., and for the second reading of the Scottish measure, 23 Sept. He presented a Halifax petition for election by ballot, wondering whether ‘the division of counties and the admission of tenants at will to the right of voting will not render the establishment of this most important system absolutely necessary for the protection of the freedom of election’, 26 Sept. He spoke and divided for Lord Ebrington’s confidence notion, 10 Oct. At a Yorkshire county meeting to address the king in support of ministers two days later, he boasted that he had attended every debate and division on the reform bill with only ‘one or two exceptions’ when he was ‘delayed by illness’. Ibid. 15 Oct. 1831. Endorsing the ensuing petition, he declared that the bill ‘would have a considerable effect in restoring the prosperity and tranquillity of this country’, 7 Dec. 1831.

Strickland welcomed proposals for the resettlement of the poor, 28 June 1831. He thought a gradual reform was best and hoped a limited system could be introduced to Ireland, but he declined to support Sadler’s proposals for the provision of poor relief there, 29 Aug., believing that ‘no form of poor law will ever act well which ... attempts to give employment to the able bodied labourer’. He presented a Dewsbury petition in favour of the Leeds and Manchester railway bill and was appointed to the committee on it, 29 June. He disapproved of those Members who had not attended one of its sittings before they turned up on the last day to vote, and supported Morpeth’s motion to consider a petition of appeal against the committee’s decision, 21 July. He unsuccessfully moved for a committee of appeal, 25 July, and presented a petition of complaint, 28 July, but was forced to withdraw it when it was ruled out of order. He criticized John Campbell’s general register bill, which would ‘give rise to many inconveniences’, 30 June, and campaigned against it at every stage thereafter, advocating local registers, similar to the one that already existed in Yorkshire, as a cheaper and better alternative, 20 Sept., demanding that Yorkshire be exempted from the bill’s provisions as initially indicated, 4 Oct., 7 Dec., and presenting numerous petitions against it. Before voting for civil list pensions, 18 July, he said that in future such proposals ought to go before a committee. He objected to a critical petition from the West Riding magistracy and clergy against the Sale of Beer Act, 3 Aug., observing that the vast increase in public houses would soon fall when many of the ventures failed. He voted against the Irish union of parishes bill, 19 Aug. On the game bill, 2 Sept., he objected to the summary power to be vested in a single magistrate and the prospect of accidental trespassers being brought before them, and threatened to divide the House, but relented after denouncing the existing laws as ‘a perfect mess of injustice and feudal barbarity’. He did not approve of intervening between master and employee but promised to support the truck bill as the working classes felt aggrieved with things as they stood, 12 Sept. He believed that Buckingham House was ‘useless and extravagant’, 28 Sept., but agreed to a grant of £100,000 as it would cost more to put it to other uses, 28 Sept. That day he welcomed Hobhouse’s cotton factories apprentices bill as ‘absolutely called for’, but regretted that it was limited to such factories. After he and Morpeth came under attack in some of the Yorkshire newspapers for their ‘indifference’ to the bill, Strickland wrote to the Mercury, 14 Nov., to deny the criticisms of Richard Oastler that he had been absent during crucial stages. He welcomed the labourers’ house rent bill, which sought to clarify the law and prevent rents being paid out of poor law funds, 29 Sept., and said he would be glad of any improvement to the Vestry Act, especially the abolition of close vestries, 30 Sept. He was appointed to the select committees on the West Indian colonies, 6 Oct., 15 Dec. Perhaps surprisingly, he backed Morpeth’s defence of the Leeds Mercury and Baines after Hunt had accused the paper of libel, 14 Dec. 1831.

Strickland voted for the second reading of the revised reform bill, 17 Dec. 1831, again supported its details, and divided for the third reading, 22 Mar. 1832. He approved making York the polling town for the North Riding, said that Wakefield would be suitable for the West, but thought Beverley inconvenient for the East, 24 Jan. He reiterated his misgivings that the proposed division of counties would make some of them nomination seats, but argued that it would ‘not be worth while to the minister of the day to make a bargain with a person who can return one or two Members’, 27 Jan. He presented a petition from the residents of Ripon praying that the borough be extended to encompass Boroughbridge and some other townships, to prevent it remaining a close borough of Miss Lawrence, 6 Feb. He supported Morpeth’s call for Huddersfield to be extended to include the parish to prevent it coming under the control of Sir John Ramsden, who owned almost all the town, 5 Mar., 8 June. On 9 Mar. he asked why Doncaster had been omitted from the representation and again charged ministers with underrepresenting Yorkshire. He voted for the address calling on the king to appoint only ministers who would carry the reform bill unimpaired, 10 May, and testified to the frustration of his constituents, whose petitions on the issue he had repeatedly deferred ‘in conformity with the generally expressed wish’ of the House, 18 May. ‘At the United Services Club’, Denis Le Marchant† recorded, 15 May, ‘Strickland showed me a letter from some of his leading constituents at Saddleworth. They have told him that people were tired of signing petitions and addresses - they wished to fight it out at once, and the sooner, the better’. Three Diaries, 258. He presented three Yorkshire petitions for supplies to be withheld until the bill passed, 23 May. He divided for the second reading of the Irish reform bill, 25 May, and expressed his hope that it would help ‘ameliorate’ the evils there, 14 June. He voted against a Conservative amendment to increase Scottish county representation, 1 June. He presented petitions from the townships of Halifax parish seeking inclusion in the borough, 5, 14 June, and spoke thus, 8 June. He was in the minority on Whitehaven’s boundary, 22 June. He attempted to present a petition from the Leeds Political Union for a more extensive Irish reform bill, 27 June, but it was refused acceptance by the Speaker. During the debate on the Liverpool franchise bill, 4 July, he rhetorically asked why Liverpool had been selected for ‘public execration’, suspecting that the reason lay only in the size of the bribes involved and not the principle of bribery itself, and concluded that the bill was unnecessary as ‘the reform bill will do much to put a stop to such a system’.

Strickland welcomed Sadler’s factories regulation bill, 15 Dec. 1831, presented petitions in its favour from Halifax, 10 Feb., 23 May, and Morley 19 Mar., and was appointed to the committee on the bill, 16 Mar. 1832. He attended the county meeting in its support next month and endorsed the ensuing petition, 27 June. He was in the minority for the second reading of the Vestry Act amendment bill, 23 Jan. 1832. He resumed his opposition to the general register bill, 22 Feb., when he was appointed to the committee on it, and welcomed Lord Nugent’s births registration bill, 18 May, believing that it would not interfere with other plans for a general register and would satisfy the wishes of the Dissenting community. He endorsed a Leeds petition for poor laws in Ireland, 23 Jan., and spoke and was in the minority for Sadler’s motion for their introduction, 19 June. He welcomed another from Dewsbury calling for education reform there, 28 Mar., and one from the West Riding supporting nondenominational teaching, 9 Apr. He voted with ministers on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., 12, 16 July, and relations with Portugal, 9 Feb. He believed that the only way to check the spread of cholera was to improve the conditions of the poor, 13 Feb. He moved the second reading of the South Shields and Monkwearmouth railway bill, 14 Feb., and urged Sir Hedworth Williamson to pursue his objections at the committee stage. When he declined and divided the House that day, Strickland was a teller for the majority. He presented a Sculcoates petition for inquiry into Peterloo, 23 Feb., and divided accordingly, 15 Mar. He presented a petition for relief from distress from Beeford and Skipsea, 29 Feb. On the presentation of a petition highlighting distress in the silk trade, 1 Mar., he said the whole subject ought to go before a committee of the House and demanded action to curtail smuggling. He seconded Ewart’s motion to abolish the death penalty for horse, sheep and cattle stealing and for burglary where no person was endangered, 27 Mar., saying that it was ‘high time’ for reforms in the criminal law. He voted with ministers on the navy civil departments bill, 6 Apr., but was in the minority against confirming an increase in the Irish registrar’s salary, 9 Apr. The following day he called for a reduction in the number of Scottish judges. When Inglis said that a petition calling for a separation of church and state was inadmissible, 8 May, Strickland insisted that ‘the people have a right to petition on all great constitutional questions’; he was appointed to a select committee on the subject next day. He presented a Hemel Hempstead petition for the abolition of slavery, 23 May, and spoke and voted for Fowell Buxton’s motion for a select committee to investigate the best means of effecting it, 24 May. He was a majority teller against amending the Sale of Beer Act, 31 May. He voted against Alexander Baring’s bill to exclude insolvent debtors from Parliament, 6 June. On the 8th he opposed a clause in Campbell’s dower bill, which he claimed would adversely affect widows with large families to support, and was a majority teller against it. He backed calls for financial recompense for coroners, voted for public inquests, but also suggested that they be given powers to hold private ones, 20 June. On 27 June he asked Kenyon to have his labourers’ employment bill printed and held over to the next session, which he refused. He protested that it went ‘totally against all the principles which ought to govern us with respect to poor laws’ and was a minority teller against it, 9 July. When the report was brought up next day, he again objected to it, complained that he had not been given sufficient opportunity to voice his opposition, and said he would divide the House on it, but was prevented from doing so by the Speaker. He endorsed a petition presented by Johnstone for a nondenominational university at Durham, 29 June. He welcomed the tithes prescription bill, believing it to be of importance to the clergy, acceptable to the landed gentry and an improvement on the ‘most objectionable’ existing law, 5 July 1832.

At the 1832 general election Strickland was returned unopposed as a Liberal for the West Riding, where he sat until 1841, when he successfully contested Preston. He retired at the dissolution of 1857. On 9 Jan. 1865 he wrote to Lord Brougham, ‘I consider you to be the oldest friend I have left in the world. Life is a most uncertain profession, all my early companions, by living too well, killed themselves off’. He explained that he had just succeeded to the estates of the Cholmley family, worth ‘about £10,000 a year’, after the death of a descendant of his maternal grandfather, whom he had only seen two or three times. The terms of the will meant he had to change his name, but, he added, ‘all this may be useful to me if I should retain my health, which never was strong’. Brougham mss. Following the death of his wife, 10 Jan. 1865, he informed Brougham, 15 Feb.:

Lately she had an independent fortune of about four thousand a year. After a separation of 37 years she has left that quite as I could wish, to my only daughter ... What has surprised some people is that she has left a legacy to me of £500 ... ‘as proof that I leave this world with no enmity to him’. The fact is that she was sensible that I had done all I could to be kind to her. Ibid.

Two years later he remarried. He died in December 1874, the last surviving Member for the former united county of Yorkshire. He had accumulated property in all three Ridings, but principally in the East, where he owned over 26,000 acres, worth £35,000 a year. J.T. Ward, East Yorks. Landed Estates, 19. By his will, dated 16 Feb. 1870, most of his estates were divided between his two surviving sons, Charles William Strickland (1819-1909), his successor in the baronetcy, and Henry Strickland Constable. Boynton, the family seat, and £70,000 passed in trust to Walter William Strickland, his eldest grandson and later the 9th baronet. He left his second wife two estates, Thorpe Bassett and Norton, both near Malton, as well as his London house at 118 Piccadilly, and gave his brother Nathaniel £20,000 and his brother John a villa in Hampshire.