Sir Robert Harry Inglis, 2nd Baronet, FRS (12 January 1786 – 5 May 1855) was an English

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

politician, noted for his staunch

high church A ''high church'' is a Christian Church whose beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, Christian liturgy, liturgy, and Christian theology, theology emphasize "ritual, priestly authority, ndsacraments," and a standard liturgy. Although ...

views.

Family

He was the son of Sir Hugh Inglis, a minor politician and MP for Ashburton (1802–1806). He married Mary Briscoe who was the daughter of John Briscoe and

Susanna Harriot Hope Susanna Harriot Hope; Susanna Harriot Gordon or Susanna Biscoe (13 June 1768 – 1839) was a British subject of a Joseph Wright painting and a party to a divorce. Life Hope was born in Derby in 1768. Her father, Charles Hope, was the rector of A ...

whose marriage had ended in scandal.Stephana Biscoe
Legacies of British Slave-ownership, UCL, Retrieved 10 January 2016

Political career

Robert succeeded to his father's

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

cy in 1820, and served as MP for

Dundalk Dundalk ( ; ) is the county town of County Louth, Ireland. The town is situated on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the north-east coast of Ireland, and is halfway between Dublin and Belfast, close to and south of the bor ...

1824–1826,

Ripon Ripon () is a cathedral city and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The city is located at the confluence of two tributaries of the River Ure, the Laver and Skell. Within the boundaries of the historic West Riding of Yorkshire, the ...

1828–1829 and

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

from 1829 to 1854. He was appointed

High Sheriff of Bedfordshire This is a list of high sheriffs of Bedfordshire. Pre-Conquest pre-1042: Aelfstan 1042–1066; Godric, Ralph Talgebose Bondi the Staller 1066–1125 *1066-c.1084: Ansculf de Picquigny * Ralph Taillebois *c. 1080 Hugh de Beauchamp *1124 ...

for 1824. Inglis was strongly opposed to measures which, in his view, weakened the

Anglican Church Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

. He spoke strongly and successfully against the Catholic Relief Bill of 1847, claiming it would, if passed, weaken England’s Protestantism and allow Catholicism to grow (Cork Examiner, April 1847). When the leading Tory MP

Robert Peel Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850), was a British Conservative statesman who twice was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835, 1841–1846), and simultaneously was Chancellor of the Exchequer (1834–183 ...

forced a by-election at Oxford University in 1829 on the issue of Catholic Emancipation, Inglis resigned from Ripon and with support from

Ultra-Tories The Ultra-Tories were an Anglican faction of British and Irish politics that appeared in the 1820s in opposition to Catholic emancipation. The faction was, in the twenty-first century, called the " extreme right-wing" of British and Irish polit ...

defeated Peel. When Robert Grant, MP for Inverness Burghs, petitioned for Jewish relief in 1830, Inglis was violently opposed. Inglis alleged that the Jews were an alien people, with no allegiance to England, and that to admit Jews to parliament would "separate Christianity itself from the State." He also alleged that if they were admitted to parliament "within seven years...Parliamentary Reform would be carried." Inglis was joined in his public opposition by the

Chancellor of the Exchequer The chancellor of the exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and the head of HM Treasury, His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, t ...

Henry Goulburn Henry Goulburn PC FRS (19 March 1784 – 12 January 1856) was a British Conservative statesman and a member of the Peelite faction after 1846. Background and education Born in London, Goulburn was the eldest son of a wealthy planter, Munbee G ...

, and the

Solicitor General A solicitor general is a government official who serves as the chief representative of the government in courtroom proceedings. In systems based on the English common law that have an attorney general or equivalent position, the solicitor general ...

and future

Lord Chancellor The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The lord chancellor is the minister of justice for England and Wales and the highest-ra ...

, Sir Edward Sugden. Although the Jews were not emancipated fully until 1858,

Parliamentary Reform The Reform Acts (or Reform Bills, before they were passed) are legislation enacted in the United Kingdom in the 19th and 20th century to enfranchise new groups of voters and to redistribute seats in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the U ...

occurred in 1832, just two years later. Inglis also likened

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

to "

idolatry Idolatry is the worship of an idol as though it were a deity. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the Abrahamic ...

" in connection with the British colony of

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

(now Sri Lanka) during a debate over the relationship of "Buddhist priests" to the British colonial government in 1852. In 1845 he broke again with

Sir Robert Peel Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850), was a British Conservative statesman who twice was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835, 1841–1846), and simultaneously was Chancellor of the Exchequer (1834–183 ...

and opposed the

Maynooth Grant The Maynooth Grant was a cash grant from the British government to a Catholic seminary in Ireland. In 1845, the Conservative Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, sought to improve the relationship between Catholic Ireland and Protestant Britain by i ...

, which would have granted a permanent yearly £26,000 subsidy to the Catholic Maynooth seminary. Other opponents included, oddly enough,

John Bright John Bright (16 November 1811 – 27 March 1889) was a British Radical and Liberal statesman, one of the greatest orators of his generation and a promoter of free trade policies. A Quaker, Bright is most famous for battling the Corn La ...

William Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British politican, starting as Conservative MP for Newark and later becoming the leader of the Liberal Party. In a career lasting over 60 years, he was Prime Minister ...

and

Benjamin Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman, Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a ...

, although on different grounds. In 1851, when Lord Stanley (who became the Earl of Derby later that year) attempted to form a protectionist administration, Inglis was offered the presidency of the Board of Control, which he accepted initially, only to withdraw a few days later. A major activity of Inglis's political career was the chairing of the select committee that controlled the

House of Commons Library The House of Commons Library is the library and information resource of the lower house of the British Parliament. It was established in 1818, although its original 1828 construction was destroyed during the burning of Parliament in 1834. Th ...

, of which he was a member for 14 years. However, his rather narrow view of its scope was overturned by

in 1850. He was made a

privy counsellor The Privy Council, formally His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its members, known as privy counsellors, are mainly senior politicians who are current or former ...

in 1854, and died the next year, at the age of 69. On his death the baronetcy became extinct. Inglis's Journals are in the

Canterbury Cathedral Canterbury Cathedral is the cathedral of the archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the Church of England and symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Located in Canterbury, Kent, it is one of the oldest Christianity, Ch ...

library and archives.

Errata

Due largely to his opposition to the Jewish reform measures, Disraeli apparently viewed Inglis with contempt, and described him as "a wretched speaker, an offensive voice, no power of expression, yet perpetually recalling and correcting his cumbersome phraseology."Robert Blake, ''Disraeli'' (New York, 1967), 304, ''op. cit.''. Yet Inglis spoke powerfully and with great compassion about the plight of the Irish people during the Great Famine of the 1840s. He was well informed about the situation 'on the ground' and drew information from reports from the Society of Friends which give an accurate picture of Ireland's suffering. He did not hesitate to criticise absentee landlords, likening them to the absentee of

Maria Edgeworth Maria Edgeworth (1 January 1768 – 22 May 1849) was a prolific Anglo-Irish novelist of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and a significant figure in the evolution of the novel i ...

's novel, ''

Castle Rackrent ''Castle Rackrent'' is a short novel by Maria Edgeworth published in 1800. Unlike many of her other novels, which were heavily "edited" by her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, before their publication, the published version is close to her origin ...

''. Inglis, whatever his religious views seems also to have been a conscientious public representative. He served as an M.P. for three different constituencies over almost thirty years and in that time he spoke 1,327 times. See ''

Hansard ''Hansard'' is the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official printe ...

'' for his speeches, particularly the speech of 1 February 1847.

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Inglis, Robert 1786 births 1855 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society Critics of Buddhism Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies 302 Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Louth constituencies (1801–1922) Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the University of Oxford Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom UK MPs 1820–1826 UK MPs 1826–1830 UK MPs 1832–1835 UK MPs 1835–1837 UK MPs 1837–1841 UK MPs 1841–1847 UK MPs 1847–1852 UK MPs 1852–1857 High sheriffs of Bedfordshire Ultra-Tory MPs People from Derbyshire Dales (district)