Joseph Holden Strutt (21 November 1758 – 11/18 February 1845), was a British soldier and long-standing Member of Parliament. He served in the Army and achieved the rank of

colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...

, and also sat as Member of Parliament for

Maldon Maldon (, locally ) is a town and civil parish on the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, England. It is the seat of the Maldon District and starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation. It is known for Maldon Sea Salt which is prod ...

from 1790 to 1826 and for

Okehampton Okehampton ( ) is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in West Devon in the English county of Devon. At the 2021 census, the parish had a population of 7,313, which was slightly more than the 7,104 recorded at the 2011 census. Th ...

from 1826 to 1830.

Education

Felsted school Felsted School is a co-educational independent school, independent boarding school, boarding and Day school, day school, situated in Felsted in Essex, England. It is in the British Public school (UK), public school tradition, and was founded i ...

;

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

1768;

Brasenose College, Oxford Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The l ...

1778.

Family

Strutt was the 2nd son of John Strutt of Terling Place by Anne, daughter of Reverend William Goodday, rector of

Strelley, Nottinghamshire Strelley is a village and former civil parish in the Borough of Broxtowe and City of Nottingham in Nottinghamshire, England. It is to the west of Nottingham. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 653, and 496 at the 2 ...

. His elder brother John died in 1781. He married Lady Charlotte FitzGerald, daughter of

James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster Lieutenant-General James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster, PC (Ire) (29 May 1722 – 19 November 1773), styled Lord Offaly until 1743 and known as The Earl of Kildare between 1743 and 1761 and as The Marquess of Kildare between 1761 and 17 ...

, and

Lady Emily Lennox Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster (6 October 1731 – 27 March 1814), known before 1747 as Lady Emily Lennox, from 1747 to 1761 as The Countess of Kildare and from 1761 to 1766 as The Marchioness of Kildare, was the second of the famous Lenn ...

, in

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

on 21/23 February 1789. With her he had one son and two daughters.

Military career

Strutt was Lieutenant Colonel of the western battalion of the Essex militia from 1783 to 1796, Colonel of the South Essex militia in 1798, 1803-5 and 1809, and West Essex militia 1823–31; When the supplementary militia was reduced, Strutt offered

William Pitt the Younger William Pitt (28 May 1759 – 23 January 1806) was a British statesman who served as the last prime minister of Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain from 1783 until the Acts of Union 1800, and then first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, p ...

, and subsequently

Henry Addington Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth (30 May 175715 February 1844) was a British Tories (British political party), Tory statesman who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1804 and as Speaker of the House of Commons (U ...

, his services in raising a regiment: the advent of peace rendered his offer superfluous.

Parliamentary career

Strutt returned from France to contest his father's seat in Maldon on the latter's retirement in 1790. A mostly silent but conscientious parliamentarian, Strutt made little mark in Parliament; but, he set great store by his and his father's services to government in Essex, where his father was ‘a constitutional pillar’ and where Strutt was active as a militia colonel. They were proudly insistent that Maldon was ‘a county, not a borough interest’ and, waiving pretensions to a county seat, resisted moves by government to influence Maldon elections. Like his father, he generally supported government, describing himself as a Tory in 1816; but he regarded himself as particularly attached to Pitt in politics. At the June 1826 general election Strutt was returned ''in absentia'' for

. Aged 71, he left Parliament at the dissolution in July 1830.

Peerage

According to

The History of Parliament The History of Parliament is a project to write a complete history of the United Kingdom Parliament and its predecessors, the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of England. The history will principally consist of a prosopography, in w ...

, Strutt, 'under a cloak of false humility' had vainly pestered successive Tory ministries for a British peerage for his wife, Charlotte, on the strength of his own and his father’s electoral and militia services in Essex. In a fragment of autobiography, intended as a lesson in filial obedience and civic duty for his troublesome son John James (1796-1873), he boasted that he had ‘obtained the approbation’ of Pitt, Dundas, Addington, Perceval, Lord Liverpool and George IV, among others; but in reality they considered him tiresome and importunate. His persistence was rewarded when his wife was offered the long sought after peerage in her own right as Baroness Rayleigh in the coronation creations of 1821. Strutt, returning thanks to Liverpool, described the honour as ‘requiting the long constitutional conduct in and out of Parliament of my ... father and of my humble constant exertions within the sphere of a country gentleman’. Lady Rayleigh died in 1836 and Strutt survived her by nine years, which gave his son precedence of rank over him.

Death

In his declining years he was consoled and nursed by his unmarried daughter Emily Anne (1790-1865), for whose future comfort he bought in 1840 St. Catherine's Court, near Bath, where he mostly spent the last five years of his life. Strutt died at Bath in February 1845 aged 86, four weeks after being forced by a fire in his bedroom to take to the street in his nightshirt.C.R. Strutt, ''Strutt Fam. of Terling, 1650-1873'', 60

Notes

References

* Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). ''Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage'' (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990, * *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Strutt, Joseph 1758 births 1845 deaths Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies British MPs 1790–1796 British MPs 1796–1800 Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Okehampton UK MPs 1801–1802 UK MPs 1802–1806 UK MPs 1806–1807 UK MPs 1807–1812 UK MPs 1812–1818 UK MPs 1818–1820 UK MPs 1820–1826 UK MPs 1826–1830

Joseph Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...

Members of Parliament for Maldon