William Ponsonby, 1st Baron de Mauley
William Francis Spencer Ponsonby, 1st Baron de Mauley (31 July 1787 – 16 May 1855), was an English Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1826 and 1837. He was raised to the Peerage in 1838.
Life[edit]
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Ponsonby was the youngest child of the 3rd Earl of Bessborough and his wife Henrietta Ponsonby, Countess of Bessborough.[1][2]
Ponsonby was elected Member of Parliament for Poole in 1826 and held the seat until 1831, when he lost it in a by-election to Lord Ashley.[3][4] He was then MP for Knaresborough between June and December 1832.[5] At the 1832 UK general election, he was elected MP for Dorset and held the seat until 1837.[6] On 10 July 1838, he was created Baron de Mauley, of Canford in the County of Dorset.[7] Whilst an MP for Poole, Ponsonby, and Benjamin Lester opened Poole's first public library in 1830.[4]
When the marriage of his sister Lady Caroline to William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, began to break up, he strongly supported Caroline.[8] Unfortunately, he was not noted for tact or intelligence—Melbourne's sister Emily Lamb, Countess Cowper, described him as being universally regarded as "an ass and a jackanapes".[8] Ponsonby reminded Melbourne that the Lamb family were socially parvenu, and that his sister had married beneath her; although true, these remarks were so tactless that Melbourne broke off any further dealings with him.[8]
Family[edit]
On 8 August 1814, Ponsonby married Lady Barbara Ashley-Cooper (the only daughter and heir of the 5th Earl of Shaftesbury and a co-heir of the medieval Barony of Mauley, 1789–1844). They had three children:[2]
- Hon. Charles Frederick Ashley Cooper (1815–1896, later the 2nd Baron de Mauley)
- Hon. Frances Anne Georgiana (1817–1910), married George Kinnaird, 9th Lord Kinnaird.
- Hon. Ashley George John (1831–1898)
References[edit]
- ^ "PONSONBY, Hon. William Francis Spencer (1787-1855), of Canford House, nr. Poole, Dorset and 20 St. James's Square, Mdx". historyofparliament.
- ^ a b Burke, John Bernard (1845). A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. H. Colburn. p. 284.
- ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "P" (part 2)
- ^ a b Legg, Rodney (2005). The Book of Poole: Harbour and Town. Halsgrove. p. 55. ISBN 1841144118.
- ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "K" (part 2)
- ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "D" (part 2)
- ^ "No. 19629". The London Gazette. 26 June 1838. p. 1445.
- ^ a b c Lord David Cecil, Melbourne, Pan Books edition 1965, p. 151.
External links[edit]
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- 1787 births
- 1855 deaths
- Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for constituencies in Dorset
- Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies
- Younger sons of earls
- Ponsonby family
- UK MPs 1826–1830
- UK MPs 1830–1831
- UK MPs 1831–1832
- UK MPs 1832–1835
- UK MPs 1835–1837
- UK MPs who were granted peerages
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- Barons de Mauley
- Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria
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