ST. PAUL, Sir Horace David Cholwell, 1st bt. (1775-1840), of Ewart Park, Belford, Northumb.; Willingsworth Hall, Staffs. and 10 Chapel Street, Grovesnor Square, Mdx.

At the general election of 1820 St. Paul, who had a pension of £600, Black Bk. (1820), 75. for the second time contested the venal borough of Bridport, where his unopposed return in 1818 had cost him about £2,500. After a four-day poll, he was defeated by the Whigs James Scott and Christopher Spurrier, but he petitioned against the latter (on 3 May) and was seated on 20 June, at the cost of at least another £2,500. Northumb. RO, St. Paul Butler mss ZBU C1/8/1, 4; Western Flying Post, 28 Feb.; Salisbury Jnl. 13, 20 Mar., 5, 26 June 1820. He was an inactive ministerialist and no trace of parliamentary activity has been found for that session. Black Bk. (1823), 191; Session of Parl. 1825, p. 484. In May he urged his brother Charles Maximilian, another soldier, to enter Parliament, but he replied that he had no private fortune out of which to pay the necessary expenses. Butler, i. pp. clxxiii-iv. His other brother, Henry Heneage, Member for Berwick, died in November 1820. St. Paul voted against condemning the Liverpool ministry’s conduct towards Queen Caroline, 6 Feb., repeal of the additional malt duty, 3 Apr., and parliamentary reform, 9 May 1821. He divided against Catholic relief, 28 Feb. 1821, and the Catholic peers bill, 30 Apr. 1822. He was listed with government against limiting the sinking fund to the real surplus of revenue, 13 Mar., repeal of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 16 Apr., and inquiry into the legal proceedings against the Dublin Orange rioters, 22 Apr. 1823. He presented an anti-slavery petition from Wooler, near Ewart Park, 26 Mar. 1824. The Times, 27 Mar. 1824. Named as a defaulter on the Catholic question, 28 Feb., he paired against relief, 1 Mar., 21 Apr., 10 May 1825. He travelled in France from May to July that year, and from October 1825 until August 1826 made a tour of the continent, during which, as an Austrian count, he was received by Francis I in Vienna. St. Paul Butler mss C1/10/1-5; Butler, i. pp. clxix-xx. Despite a rumour that he had resigned his interest in the borough and his absence abroad, he was returned unopposed with the radical Henry Warburton for Bridport at the general election of 1826. Dorset Co. Chron. 8, 15 June 1826.

He voted against Catholic relief, 6 Mar. 1827, 12 May, and repeal of the Test Acts, 26 Feb. 1828. He divided against reducing the salary of the lieutenant-general of the ordnance, 4 July 1828. In February 1829 he was listed by Planta, the Wellington ministry’s patronage secretary, as likely to be ‘opposed to the principle’ of the government’s Catholic emancipation bill. In presenting and endorsing an anti-Catholic petition from Tipton, 18 Feb., he declared that relief would ‘lay the axe to the root of that constitution under which we have long enjoyed greater blessings than any other people in the world’. He was absent from the call of the House, 5 Mar., and on the 10th Sir John Brydges, who brought up the Bridport anti-Catholic petition on his behalf that day, explained that illness had prevented St. Paul voting in ‘the glorious minority’ on the 6th. In fact his name was included in the anti-Catholic list that day, as it was in the minorities against emancipation, 18, 27, 30 Mar. 1829. He voted against transferring East Retford’s seat to Birmingham, 11 Feb., and the enfranchisement of Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, 23 Feb. 1830. He divided in the minority for Knatchbull’s amendment to prevent the sale of beer for on-consumption, 21 June 1830. Although there were rumours of a third candidate, he was returned unopposed at the general election that summer. Ibid. 1, 15 July, 5 Aug. 1830.

He was listed by ministers among their ‘friends’, but was absent from the division on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830, which led to their resignation. He supported prohibition of the truck system ‘as a friend to the people’, 13 Dec. 1830, and, in reply to Hume, who took him to task for this phrase, preposterously asserted that ‘the course which I have pursued has been, I believe, as useful to the people and has tended as much to improve their comforts as that of the honourable Member’. He voted against the second reading of the Grey ministry’s reform bill, 22 Mar., and for Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. At the ensuing general election, when another possible challenge proved abortive, he was returned for Bridport as a professed moderate reformer who opposed the planned removal of one seat from the borough. Ibid. 28 Apr., 5 May 1831. He divided against the second reading of the reintroduced reform bill, 6 July, and, according to the Dorset newspaper, on the motions to adjourn consideration of it on the 12th ‘voted on this, as on other divisions, against the ministers’. Ibid. 21 July 1831. He divided for using the 1831 census to determine the boroughs in schedules A and B, 19 July, and to postpone consideration of the partial disfranchisement of Chippenham, 27 July, when he presented and endorsed the Bridport petition against its inclusion in schedule B. He divided against the passage of the bill, 21 Sept., but was named as a defaulter on Lord Ebrington’s confidence motion, 10 Oct. 1831, presumably because he was in Dorset, where he voted for the anti-reformer Lord Ashley* in the county by-election. St. Paul Butler mss B7/7; Dorset Pollbook (Sept.-Oct. 1831), 11.

He voted 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 vindicated the conduct of the yeomanry in the protection of private property, 23 Feb. Illness prevented his siding against ministers on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., Dorset Co. Chron. 9 Feb. 1832. but he did so on 12 July, his last known vote. By then, despite strong Conservative support, he judged that he had no chance of re-election in the reprieved borough of Bridport. Ibid. 21 June; Sherborne Jnl. 5 July 1832. At the general election of 1832 he started for the newly enfranchised single Member constituency of Dudley, where his wife had considerable property. He was promised the support of her deranged kinsman the 1st earl of Dudley, who hoped that ‘we shall make a good fight against the Jacobins’. Butler, i. p. clxxix; St. Paul Butler mss C1/9. But he stood no chance against the Whig lawyer John Campbell II*, who, despite the efforts that were made against him, noted that ‘I was told, and I believe told truly, that St. Paul could not buy five votes in the borough, for that any man suspected of taking money would be infamous’. Life of Campbell, ii. 13-25. On the hustings St. Paul claimed that his principles had ‘ever been of practical economy’ and independence, but he resigned on the third day, when he trailed by 90 out of the total of 540 electors polled. Worcester Herald, 15 Dec. 1832. He is not known to have sought another seat in Parliament. St. Paul, who came into further property on the deaths of his wife (26 Jan. 1837) and mother (5 Aug. 1838), died in October 1840. Gent. Mag. (1837), i. 333; (1838), ii. 565; (1841), i. 202-3. By his will, dated 22 Dec. 1838, he made provision for his daughters and left the bulk of his estate, including personalty sworn under £90,000 in the province of Canterbury and under £18,000 in that of York, to his only son Horace (1812-91), Conservative Member for Worcestershire East, 1837-41, who succeeded him in the titles of count and baronet. PROB 11/1941/143; IR26/1589/73.