Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/272

Verney a fellow commoner of Downing College. Being older than the other undergraduates, he lived chiefly with the fellows and tutors, and enjoyed the friendship of Adam Sedgwick [q. v.] and William Whewell [q. v.]

On 10 Dec. 1832 Sir Harry was returned for Buckingham to the House of Commons, in which he sat (with two short interruptions) for fifty-two years. A liberal in politics, he supported with ardour the abolition of the slave trade and the repeal of the corn laws; he voted for factory legislation, the amendment of the criminal law, the abolition of university tests, of Jewish disabilities, and of the paper duties; in later years he supported the disestablishment of the Irish church, the education act, the abolition of army purchase, and the successive measures for the extension of the franchise. He promoted the social reforms of Lord Shaftesbury, his old school-fellow at Harrow and intimate friend; he was an active member of the Bible Society, the Church Missionary Society, and the Evangelical Alliance, and was able to render good service to the foreign protestant churches and pasteurs whom he loved to visit. In religious opinion he was of the old evangelical school, but his sympathies were broad.

An early member of the Royal Geographical Society, Verney had a remarkable knowledge of geography and a keen interest in every fresh discovery; he attended the conference at Brussels in 1876, when King Leopold gave him his portrait, and afterwards kept up the acquaintance by correspondence. Sir Harry was one of the founders of the Royal Agricultural Society; he attended its jubilee in 1888, when he was welcomed by the Prince of Wales as the ‘father’ of the society.

His own political jubilee was celebrated at Buckingham in 1883 amid the congratulations of members on both sides of the House of Commons, in which the borough or the shire of Buckingham had been represented by the Verneys of Claydon since the reign of Edward VI. Two years later the long political connection between Buckingham and its member, described by the Duke of Argyll as ‘a rare example of the soundest and best kind of relationship between those who represent and those who are represented in parliament,’ came to an end by the disfranchisement of the borough in the Reform Bill of 1885. Sir Harry was then made a privy councillor. He spoke at the Oxford diocesan conference in 1893, and rode his grey pony within a week of his death on 12 Feb. 1894, in the ninety-third year of his age.

Sir Harry married, first, in 1835, Eliza, daughter of Admiral Sir George Hope, one of Nelson's captains at Trafalgar, and sister of Sir James Hope [q. v.], admiral of the fleet; and secondly, in 1858, Frances Parthenope, elder daughter of William Edward Nightingale. By his first wife he had four sons and three daughters. From the date of his second marriage it was Sir Harry's greatest interest and delight to promote the work of his sister-in-law, Florence Nightingale, and he took a leading part in the national aid to the sick and wounded during the Franco-German war in 1870.

He published the ‘Journals and Correspondence of General Sir Harry Calvert, Bart.,’ London, 1853, besides sundry pamphlets.

A portrait in oils, by George Richmond, R.A., is in the Aylesbury Infirmary, and a replica at Claydon House. A three-quarter length in oils, by Sir William Richmond, R.A., is at Claydon House, together with a head by Sir G. Hayter, a study for a picture of the House of Commons in 1834. There is a bust, in white marble, by Williamson, and a bronze bas-relief, by H. A. Pegram, is in Middle Claydon church.

[Harrow Reg.; Times, 13 Feb. 1894; Record, 16 Feb. 1894; Burke's Peerage and Baronetage; manuscript letters and journals at Claydon House.] 

VERNEY, RALPH (1613–1696), first baronet and politician, was the eldest son of Sir Edmund Verney (1590–1642) [q. v.] and Sir Edmund Verney (1616–1649) [q. v.] was his younger brother. A methodical and studious youth, Ralph was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and married, while still an undergraduate, Mary, daughter and heiress of John Blacknall of Abingdon. His public life began young; he represented Aylesbury in both the Short and the Long parliaments of 1640. Verney was knighted on 8 March 1640–1. His ‘Notes of Proceedings in the Long Parliament’ were edited by Mr. Bruce for the Camden Society (1845). He was present when the king entered the house to arrest the five members; sat on Strafford's trial, and kept ‘very careful notes of the theological revelations and profound arguments’ heard in the committee which considered ‘the petition and remonstrance’ (, Cromwell, i. 150). He was strongly opposed to Laud, and joined with his father in bringing over Archbishop Ussher to preach in London, collecting subscriptions among his friends for his support. He took as careful notes of Ussher's sermons as he did of the debates. Not being fettered, as his father was, by the close personal ties that bound him to the king, Sir Ralph took the parlia-