ORD, William (1781-1855), of Whitfield Hall, Northumb. and 17 Berkeley Square, Mdx.

Ord’s estates, the product of the fortuitous marriages and investments of his great-great-grandfather, the Newcastle attorney John Ord (d. 1703), and his descendants, included Benwell colliery, property in Newcastle and the Newminster Abbey interest in the borough of Morpeth, where in 1802 he had successfully challenged the Howards, earls of Carlisle, for the second seat that he retained unopposed for the next 30 years. Northumb. RO, Blackett-Ord (Whitfield) mss NRO324/D/27; O/1/20-37; Tyne and Wear Archives, Benwell estate recs. I/89-100; R. Welford, Men of Mark ‘Twixt Tyne and Tweed, iii. 235; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 674-5. A well-connected Whig and supporter of Catholic relief and moderate parliamentary reform, he was a thick and thin attender, whose vote could be depended on. He rarely spoke in debate, but he was a popular figure at Grillion’s, Brooks’s and on the back benches, where his astute semi-private asides sustained his colleagues. Blackett-Ord mss A/65; Cockburn Letters, 437-8; D. Rapp, ‘The Left Wing Whigs: Whitbread, the Mountain and Reform, 1808-1815’, JBS, xxi (1982), 42-66; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 674-5. One of them, Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby, who like John Fazakerley* and John William Ward*, the future earl of Dudley, wrote to him from abroad for information on domestic politics, noted: ‘There is no person in whose sound judgement and correct information I have more reliance than yours, nor to whose foresight of effects to spring from existing causes I give greater credit’. Blackett-Ord mss A/28, Ponsonby to Ord, 18 Nov. 1822; A/33, Ward to same, 26 Oct.; A/35, Fazakerley to same, Aug. [Dec.] 1821, Oct. 1823, Apr. 1824.

Ord divided steadily with the Whig opposition on all major issues in the 1820 Parliament, and fairly regularly with his stepfather Thomas Creevey and the ‘Mountain’ for economy, retrenchment, reduced taxation, a reduction in capital offences and to end military flogging. He voted to make Leeds a scot and lot borough under the Grampound disfranchisement bill, 2 Mar. 1821, for reform, 9, 10 May 1821, 25 Apr. 1822, 20 Feb., 24 Apr., 2 June 1823, 26 Feb. 1824, 13, 27 Apr. 1826, and in condemnation of electoral bribery, 26 May 1826. He divided for Catholic relief, 28 Feb. 1821, 1 Mar., 21 Apr., 10 May 1825. A radical publication of that session noted that he ‘attended regularly, and voted with the opposition’. Session of Parl. 1825, p. 478. He did so in condemnation of the indictment in Demerara of the Methodist missionary John Smith, 11 June 1824, and of the Jamaican slave trials, 2 Mar. 1826; and, having opposed the 1815 corn law from the outset, he divided to consider its reform, 18 Apr. 1826. Ord visited North Wales and the Lake District with his wife in the summer of 1821 and France, the Rhineland and Switzerland during the 1825 recess, keeping meticulous journal records of both tours. Blackett-Ord mss A/10, 15; Add. 52011, Eleanor Fazakerley to H.E. Fox, 7 Aug. 1825. He chaired the local committee for the Hexham road, and its construction under the 1821 and 1828 Acts greatly improved the approach to his mansion at Whitfield, which the Newcastle barrister James Losh considered ‘one of the most comfortable residences I have seen’. CJ, lxxvi. 200; lxxxiii. 375; Blackett-Ord mss A/81, 83; Tyne Mercury, 2, 16, 30 Sept. 1823; Diaries and Corresp. of James Losh ed. E. Hughes (Surtees Soc. clxxiv) [Hereafter cited as Losh Diaries, ii], 96. A suggestion that he might be prepared to return a paying guest for Morpeth and stand on the Whig interest for Northumberland when a by-election seemed likely in March 1824 was not tested. Northumb. RO, Ridley (Blagdon) mss ZRI 25/45, Bigge to Ridley, 1 Mar. [1824]. When the county polled in February 1826 he gave his interest to the victor, his cousin Matthew Bell, an anti-Catholic Tory, having first pledged support for Lord Grey’s son Lord Howick*, whom he seconded when he stood unsuccessfully at the general election in June 1826. Creevey mss, Creevey to Miss Ord, 16 Feb.; Grey mss, Ord to Howick, 24 Feb.; Blackett-Ord mss A/67; The Times, 12 June; Newcastle Chron. 17 June 1826. Of his own unopposed return, the ‘liberal’ Tyne Mercury commented, ‘Mr. Ord is a staunch Whig and Morpeth is one of the most rotten boroughs in the kingdom’. Tyne Mercury, 13 June 1826.

In a rare speech, 7 Dec. 1826, he defended his friend John Thomas Biggs, the former chief justice of Trinidad, whose delayed report on the conduct of Lord Charles Somerset† as governor of the Cape of Good Hope was the subject of a complaint by Hume. He voted against the grant for the duke of Clarence, 16 Feb., and for Catholic relief, 6 Mar., a 50s. pivot price for corn imports, 9 Mar., and inquiry into the allegations against Leicester corporation, 15 Mar. 1827. In April he briefed Fazakerley on the new prime minister Canning’s cabinet appointments. Duke Univ. Fazakerley mss, Ord to Fazakerley [17 Apr. 1827]. He divided against government for the Penryn disfranchisement bill, 28 May 1827. Congratulating Lord Lansdowne, a close friend since their Cambridge days, on his appointment as home secretary, he wrote:

I dare say I was more glad than you were to see that you had received the seals. I can tell you your appointment and your carrying our good friend [Thomas] Spring Rice* with you gives great satisfaction to the best people in these parts and you know Newcastle is a very liberal enlightened and criticizing place. Lansdowne mss, Ord to Lansdowne, 21 July [1827].

He was at Whitfield, where Lord Althorp*, Edward Davenport*, and Dudley were among his hunting guests, when Canning died. Le Marchant, Althorp, 224. He deemed the Navarino victory ‘a scrape’. Add. 51569, Ord to Lady Holland, 10 Nov. [1827]. He cast a handful of votes against the duke of Wellington’s ministry in 1828: for repeal of the Test Acts, 26 Feb., against sluicing the franchise at East Retford, 21 Mar., for a fixed 15s. duty on corn imports, 29 Apr., and against the Buckingham House grant, 23 June. He voted for Catholic relief, 12 May. Reviewing the political situation in a letter to Fazakerley, 3 Oct. 1828, he observed: ‘Wheat rising in England and Papists rising in Ireland are formidable circumstances, to say nothing of Brunswick Clubs’. He later wrote disparagingly to him of the anti-Catholic duke of Northumberland’s appointment as Irish lord lieutenant. Party through George Tierney* to the Whigs’ pre-session plans to try to effect Catholic emancipation in 1829, Ord was listed by the patronage secretary Planta in February as ‘opposed to securities’, but he divided for the measure 6, 30 Mar., and to permit Daniel O’Connell to sit without swearing the oath of supremacy, 18 May. Fazakerley mss, Ord to Fazakerley, 3 Oct. [1828] [1829]. He voted to transfer East Retford’s seats to Birmingham, 5 May, and against the grant for the marble arch, 25 May. His Newcastle influence increased after he renegotiated the Town Moor lease with the corporation in December 1828, and he presented their petitions in support of the Newcastle-Carlisle railway bill, in which he had a proprietorial interest, 19 Mar. 1829. He also brought up the report on the South Shields railway bill that day and successfully moved the third reading of the Scotswood (Tyne) bridge bill. Tyne and Wear Archives MD/NC/2/11, Newcastle-upon-Tyne common council minutes, 23 Dec. 1828; Blackett-Ord mss A/81. He took a keen interest in the education and career of his only son William Henry, a barrister and former president of the Cambridge Union, and initially opposed his marriage on 8 Dec. 1829 to Frances Vere Lorraine, daughter of the failed Northumberland banker Sir William Lorraine of Kirkhale. Blackett-Ord mss A/29, 36; O/38, 39; Losh Diaries, ii. 90; S. Holliday, ‘Lorraines of Kirkhale’, Northern Hist. xxxvi (2000), 73-82. He divided for the Ultra Sir Edward Knatchbull’s amendment to include reference to distress in the address, 4 Feb., and to enfranchise Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, 23 Feb. 1830. He was a notable absentee when the ‘old Whigs’ met at Althorp’s rooms, 3 Mar., but he divided with the revived Whig opposition on most major issues that session, including for Jewish emancipation, 5 Apr., 17 May, reform, 28 May, and the abolition of capital punishment for forgery, 24 May, 7 June. Castle Howard mss, Sir J.R.G. Graham to Morpeth [3 Mar. 1830]. He supported the sitting Whig Sir Matthew White Ridley when a contest threatened at Newcastle at the general election in July 1830, and he criticized the ministry and called for economy, retrenchment, civil and religious liberty, and a mild and constitutional reform in his election speech at Morpeth. His son backed the independent Thomas Wentworth Beaumont* for the county. Ridley (Blagdon) mss 25/59, Stable to Ridley, 31 May, Bigge to same, 5 June; Tyne Mercury, 20 July 1830.

Henry Brougham* and the Scottish lawyer Thomas Kennedy* were among the prominent Whigs who sought Ord’s opinion on reform before Parliament met. He informed both that unless there was a sudden and unlikely change in the political situation, he was too short of money to return to London before the January session, and anticipated that Wellington would do ‘anything rather than go out and will thus disarm opponents’. Cockburn Letters, 236-7; Brougham mss, Ord to Brougham, 12 Sept. 1830. He was naturally listed among the ministry’s ‘foes’ and he voted to bring them down on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830. He was disappointed to find his loyalty unrewarded when Grey formed his ministry. Blackett-Ord mss A/36, W.H. Ord to fa. [Nov. 1830]. He took a keen interest in the Newcastle reform meeting which his son addressed, 21 Dec. 1830, and was a requisitionist for the Northumberland reform meetings of 2 Feb. and 16 Mar. 1831. Ibid. same to same, 23, 25 Dec. 1830; Tyne Mercury, 1, 8 Feb. 1831. In his regular reports to the Hollands on debates and ministerial performance, he attributed the former chancellor Goulburn’s erudite reply to Althorp’s budget speech to prior briefing by an informant within the treasury, 11 Feb., and deemed the performance of Peel (whom he personally disliked), when the reform bill was introduced, 1-3 Mar., ‘too solemn and pompous’ and inferior to that of the Irish secretary Smith Stanley. Add. 51569, Ord to Lord and Lady Holland, 23 Dec. 1830-4 Mar. 1831. He divided for the bill at its second reading, 22 Mar., brought up a favourable petition from Newcastle and a hostile one from Morpeth, which stood to lose a Member, 28 Mar., and was pleased to see this restored, 18 Apr. He divided against Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. 1831, but he was not surprised to see it carried. At the ensuing general election he supported Howick’s successful candidature for Northumberland and came in for Morpeth as previously. Add. 51569, Ord to Lady Holland [18 Apr.], to Holland [19 Apr.], 1 May; Tyne Mercury, 26 Apr., 3 May 1831.

Ord voted for the reintroduced reform bill at its second reading, 6 July, against adjournment, 12 July, and divided steadily for its details and for its third reading, 19 Sept., and passage, 21 Sept. 1831. He voted for Lord Ebrington’s confidence motion, 10 Oct. His letter of 13 Sept. to Fazakerley had predicted the bill’s defeat in the Lords, but he remained convinced that the anti-reformers were deluded in their assumption that the ‘country are become indifferent to the bill’. He recommended creating peers to carry it and, having sought the honour for himself, complained that half the peerages awarded at the coronation went to ‘quite disreputable people ... without any claim that I can see’. Add. 51569, Ord to Holland, 1 Aug.; Fazakerley mss, Ord to Fazakerley, 13 Sept. [1831]. Despite receiving tactical advice from his son, a boundary commissioner, on the criteria applicable to Morpeth, he failed to prevent its demotion to schedule B in the revised reform bill, which ‘on the whole’ he thought ‘much improved’. Blackett-Ord mss A/36, W.H. Ord to fa. Sept.-Oct. 1831; Cockburn Letters, 365-8. He voted for its second reading, 17 Dec. 1831, when, as he had expected, ministers had a ‘very good division’, and on the 29th, after consulting Lansdowne at Bowood, he declared jointly with Beaumont for Northumberland South at the first post-reform election. He had rejected this option three months previously when ‘sounded’ by the recorder of Morpeth James Losh. Add. 51569, Ord to [?Holland, 16 Dec.]; Blackett-Ord mss A/36, W.H. Ord to fa. 18 Sept. 1831; Cockburn Letters, 366; Losh Diaries, ii. 107, 135. He divided steadily for the reform bill’s details and for its third reading, 22 Mar. 1832. He intervened to counter Croker’s criticism of the boundaries designated by his son for Appleby, 23 Feb. When in May a ministry headed by Wellington was contemplated, he authorized his Northumberland committee to canvass and voted for the address calling on the king to appoint only ministers who would carry the reform bill unimpaired, 10 May. Newcastle Chron. 12, 19 May 1832. He divided for the Irish reform bill at its second reading, 25 May, and against a Conservative amendment to the Scottish measure, 1 June 1832. He sent Brougham further information on Appleby ahead of its consideration in the Lords. Brougham mss, Ord to Brougham, 27 May 1832. He divided with government on the Dublin election controversy, 23 Aug. 1831, the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., 12 July (for which he paired, 20 July), and Portugal, 9 Feb. 1832. He was named by them to the select committee on West Indian slavery, 30 May 1832.

Friends and colleagues were stunned by Ord’s defeat at the 1832 general election, when, standing as a Liberal he finished in third place behind Bell after a bitter contest. During it the alleged links of his son (who came in for Newport, Isle of Wight) with Thomas Attwood† and the Northern Political Union were severely criticized. Blackett-Ord mss A/35, Fazakerley to Ord Dec.; A/42, Grote to Ord, 25 Dec.; A/43, Ebrington to same, 25 Dec.; A/68; Northumb. RO, Middleton mss ZM1/S/77/5/9; BMO/B/28; John Bull, 24 June, 1 July, 30 Dec.; Newcastle Chron. 22 Dec.; Add. 51688, Lansdowne to Holland [Dec. 1832]. Ord successfully contested Newcastle in 1835 and topped the poll there in 1837 and 1847. His retirement through ill health in 1852 was marked with a civic banquet and tributes to his ‘straightforwardness ... consistent maintenance of liberal opinions’ and ‘unswerving attachment to the cause of civil and religious liberty’ over 50 years. Blackett-Ord mss A/69-71, 75; The Times, 10 Sept. 1852; Public Dinner to Ord (1852). He died at Whitfield in July 1855, predeceased in 1838 and without issue by his son, and in 1848 by his wife. Gent. Mag. (1855), ii. 319-20; Blackett-Ord mss A/57. His will, dated 10 Apr. 1854, was proved in the provinces of Canterbury and York and executed by the Rev. John Alexander Blackett, the husband of his niece Ann Jane (née Hamilton), to whom he bequeathed his estates in trust. As required, they took the additional name of Ord. He provided financially for his sister Eleanor, brother-in-law the Rev. Thomas Scott and sister-in-law Charlotte Bigge, and made his daughter-in-law (d. 1874), since 1851 the wife of Sir Edward Blackett of Halton Castle, Northumberland, his residuary legatee. Newcastle Chron. 27 July 1855; PROB 11/2218/720; IR26/2043/875; Blackett-Ord mss B/18-20.