Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/269

 had for years been paying more than her due share of the taxation of the empire, as fixed by the Act of Union. In July 1877 he returned to the subject of the over-taxation of Ireland, and at the opening of parliament in January next year, being called on, owing to Butt's illness, to act as leader of the Irish party, he urged that the most pressing needs of Ireland were the assimilation of the Irish franchise to that of England, a reasonable university bill, and the acknowledgment of Ireland's right to manage her own domestic affairs.

Meanwhile he had purchased from the Blakes a large estate of some 14,000 acres in county Galway between Letterfrack and Lenane. It consisted mostly of bog land, which he reclaimed, and at Kylemore Lough he erected a stately mansion, known as Kylemore Castle, now the property of the duke of Manchester. These operations and the fact of his residing there brought money into the district, and his relations with the peasantry were on the whole very friendly till the days of the Land League. His position as an Irish landlord seems, however, to have modified his political views; anyhow he came to view with apprehension the development of the home rule agitation under Parnell's leadership. Independent of his rents for his income, he suffered less than his neighbours from the Land League movement, but he disapproved its operations. The home rule which he advocated was, he declared, intended to draw Ireland closer to England, whereas the object of the Parnellites was to sever Ireland from England (, Debates, cclv. 1884-90). His warm support of Forster's efforts to suppress the league brought about an open breach with his former colleagues. While supporting the land bill of 1881 he deprecated the working of it by the county court judges (12 May 1881, ibid. cclxii. 342–51), and described the Land League as a ‘dishonest, demoralising and un-Christian agitation.’ Henry was unseated at the general election in 1885 by what he called Parnellite ‘intimidation.’ He was, however, elected for the Blackfriars division of Glasgow, and returning to parliament he reopened the campaign against his former colleagues and their Gladstonian allies (ib. ccciv. 1275), and voted against the second reading of Gladstone's home rule bill on 7 June 1886. He failed to obtain re-election at the general election that year and retired from parliament. In 1889 the firm of A. & S. Henry was turned into a limited liability company, of which Henry was chairman till 1893. His interest in Ireland declined and his pecuniary position was not maintained. Disposing of his Galway estate, he established himself at Leamington, where he died on 22 Nov. 1910. Henry married in 1850 Margaret, daughter of George Vaughan of Quilly House, Dromore, county Down, by whom he had three sons and three daughters. His wife predeceased him in 1874 and was buried in a mausoleum erected by him near Kylemore Castle.

A cartoon by ‘Spy’ appeared in ‘Vanity Fair’ (1879).



HENTY, GEORGE ALFRED (1832–1902), writer for boys, born at Trumpington, near Cambridge, on 8 Dec. 1832, was the eldest son of three children of James Henty, stockbroker, and Mary Bovill, daughter of Dr. Edwards, physician, of Wandsworth. In September 1847 he was admitted to Westminster School, and in 1852 he proceeded to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, but left the university prematurely without taking a degree. On the outbreak of the Crimean war Henty and his younger brother, Frederick, volunteered for active service. Both entered the hospital commissariat, and in the spring of 1855 went out to the Crimea. Later in the year the brother died of cholera at Scutari. Henty's Crimean experience gave him a taste both for soldiering and for journalism. His letters describing the siege of Sevastopol were accepted by the ‘Morning Advertiser,’ and he continued his contributions until he was incapacitated by fever. On being invalided home, he was promoted purveyor of the forces, and received the Turkish order of the Medjidie. His administrative capacity was recognised, and in 1859 he was chosen to organise the Italian hospitals during the war with Austria. On his return he held various posts in the commissariat department at Belfast and Portsmouth, but he soon wearied of routine and resigned his commission. For a time Henty helped his father in the management of a colliery in Wales, an experience he afterwards turned to account in his story