Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/391

 1886. 17. ‘The Maybrick Trial: a Toxicological Study’ (with R. Macnamara), 1890.

[Journ. Chem. Soc. 1893, p. 766; Lancet, 1892, p. 650; Medical Directory, 1892; private communication from W. M. Tidy, esq.]  TIERNAN or TIGHEARNAN, O'ROURKE (d. 1172), king of Breifne. [See .]

TIERNEY, GEORGE (1761–1830), statesman, was son of Thomas Tierney, a native of Limerick, who, having been a merchant in London, removed to Gibraltar in order to act as prize agent there. His family belonged to the wealthy mercantile class; his uncle James was a member of the firm of Tierney, Lilly, & Robarts, Spanish merchants of Lawrence Pountney Lane; and another uncle, George, was long a merchant and banker at Naples.

George Tierney was born at Gibraltar on 20 March 1761. About 1763 his father removed to Paris, where he lived in affluence for nearly thirty years. For some reason he appears to have been unable or unwilling to return home, but his wife resided near London, and his children were educated in England.

George was sent to Eton and afterwards to Peterhouse, Cambridge, whence he graduated LL.B. in 1784. He was called to the bar, but did not practise. Late in 1788 he contested Colchester in the popular interest against George Jackson (afterwards judge-advocate of the fleet), and both candidates polled the same number of votes. On 1 April 1789 the committee which was appointed to try the election reported that Tierney was duly elected. At the general election next year the same candidates stood and Jackson was elected. Tierney petitioned, and his petition was dismissed as frivolous and vexatious. Colchester was a notoriously corrupt place, and the expenses of two elections and two petitions fell heavily upon him. An attempt to enforce a promise of the Duke of Portland to bear part of the cost by filing a bill in chancery against him was unsuccessful, and Tierney was left to publish his annoyance in a pamphlet letter to Dundas in 1791. He turned his attention also to Indian affairs, on which he had already written one pamphlet in 1787, and now wrote two others, both in 1791. At the general election of 1796 he was invited to contest Southwark, a subscription being raised to return him free of expense; but he was decisively defeated by his opponent, George Woodford Thellusson, his niece's husband, and second son of Peter Thellusson [q. v.] On petition, however, Thellusson's election was annulled for breaches of the Treating Act. Another election was held with the same result, and Tierney again petitioned, with the result that his opponent was declared ineligible and the seat awarded to him.

Tierney at once plunged into an active opposition to Pitt. During 1797 he introduced several financial motions, and served as chairman of a committee upon a bill to prevent the regrating of cattle. In 1798, when Fox and his followers resolved to discontinue their attendance in the House of Commons, Tierney insisted upon appearing in his place. He thus secured an opportunity of making himself personally prominent, and became for a considerable time the most prominent and often the only opponent of Pitt in debate. By this conduct he deeply offended the whigs of the party of Fox, and it was long before he regained any share of their confidence. Matters were not mended by his protestations of personal loyalty to Fox. His action in fact deprived their demonstration of much of its effect, and he was never wholly forgiven (cf. Life of Wilberforce, iii. 36;, Memoirs of the Whig Party, i. 93).

In May 1798 Tierney came into personal conflict with Pitt. During a debate on the manning of the navy on the 25th, Pitt accused Tierney of deliberately impeding public business, and refused to withdraw his aspersion when it was ruled unparliamentary. He and Tierney met in consequence on the following Sunday afternoon, the 27th, on Putney Heath, and, while a considerable crowd, among whom was the speaker Addington, looked on, they exchanged two shots on each side without hitting, and the seconds then declared honour to have been satisfied (, Life of Sidmouth, i. 205;, Life of Pitt, iii. 130).

From 1798 onward Tierney kept up a constant and vigorous criticism of Pitt's policy, and ‘maintained his own line of opposition, especially in questions of finance’ (, Diaries, i. 193). He had begun on 24 Nov. 1797 his series of onslaughts on the budget, when his tone is said by Wilberforce to have been ‘truly Jacobinical’ (Life, ii. 244), and he annually introduced resolutions censuring in detail the government's financial policy for the year. In 1798 he moved a resolution in favour of a separate peace with France, and his generally cosmopolitan sentiments made Canning strike at him as the ‘Friend of Humanity’ in the ‘Needy Knife-grinder.’ His talent, however, was recognised and admitted by his opponents,