SEYMOUR, Hugh Henry John (1790-1821), of 244 Piccadilly, Mdx.

On Seymour’s wedding day in May 1818, Lady Williams Wynn reported that he was to marry Lady Charlotte Cholmondeley

en grande cérémonie at ten o’clock, under the auspices of [the] p[rince] r[egent], who is to give her away. I should not like to see my son receive a bride from such an unlucky hand, nor should I think my daughter’s virgin purity unpolluted in approaching the altar through so gross an atmosphere. Williams Wynn Corresp. 207-8.

His father-in-law, a notorious lecher, was lord steward of the household and his uncle the 2nd marquess of Hertford, on whose interest he was twice returned for Antrim, was lord chamberlain, as well as the regent’s cuckold. Seymour, who was not in the end challenged at the general election of 1820, continued to support the Liverpool government silently. Belfast News Letter, 3, 24 Mar. 1820; HP Commons, 1790-1820, v. 123. He voted against economies in revenue collection, 4 July 1820 (unless this was Horace), and in defence of their conduct towards Queen Caroline, 6 Feb. 1821. He divided against Catholic relief, 28 Feb. Either he or his brother paired against repeal of the additional malt duty, 3 Apr., and voted against economies, 28 May, 18 June. Reputed never to have wholly recovered from Walcheren fever, he obtained a month’s sick leave, 9 May. He died, intestate and ‘in the prime of life’, in December 1821, less than three months after the birth of his son. Belfast News Letter, 11 Dec. 1821; Gent. Mag. (1821), ii. 573. On 26 Jan. 1822 administration of his estate, including personalty sworn under £8,000, was granted to his widow. PROB 6/198. A year later she was reported to be ‘still in weeds and suffering the greatest anxiety about her baby, who is very weakly’. Arbuthnot Jnl. i. 197. She died in 1828, but Hugh Horatio Seymour survived until 1892.