Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/38

 DERBY ulk mill in Knglnnd was built here in 1718,
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toinid in the wr.'ii-ht into ornaments. Derby gives the title of earl t.. th.- Stanley family. IT, I. Cdward Geoffrey Smith-Stanley, ^1 Han 'ii Stanley, a British Park. Lancashire, March died there, Got, i':{. INI;;). IK- was educated at Kti.n aii'l at ( 'hristcliurcli, '. ami was di.-tinL'iii-hed at the uni- !ii- classical attainuu-iits. iraining tlu- pri/e f..r Latin verse in 1819. In Is-Jl he 1 parliament as member tor Stoekbridge, anil MOO took rank ani-iiL- the ablest debaters ami most prominent leaders of'the whig oppo- to tin- ministry of the earl of Liverpool. member for Preston, Lan- . in 1 *_><;, ami on March 11, 1827, took office a- under s.-.-rrtary for the colonies in Canning's administration, which office he con- tinued to hold in the Goderich cabinet until .hit ion in .January, 1828. During the three years of the Wellington government he ! among the prominent orators and statesmen in the house of commons. On the formation of the reform cabinet of Lord Grey '. he was appointed chief secretary for In-hind, with a seat in the cabinet. He failed lection from Preston, and represented the borough of Windsor from 1830 to 1832, when he was returned by one of the divisions of Lancashire. In tin- great struggle of 1832- '3, which resulted in the pa-sage of the reform bill, the church temporalities bill, and the bill to establish national education in Ireland, Mr. took a brilliant and effective part, and antagonist ,,f '('<.miell in his agitation for a repeal of tin- union. In 1833 1 the office of chief secretary for
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-. bring nominated tu this post with the i-arrying the abolition of st Indies, which was effected "f his father to the 'earl- dom, he became known by the courtesy title "ley, and in the same year retired iiiet in ronsnjiience of his non- with the ministerial proposition ropriate the surplus funds of t 1 for secular education. In t! :nni s -n the y ni &* ! Sir Robert IVel inet in whirl, Lord Stanley occu- etarY. In 1844 her was still living, he was sum- it to the ho,,.,, of lords as Baron nd assumed the leader- lhl P ot ' rnWTe party in that body ! When Sir Robert Peel resolved in 1845 to adopt a free-trade policy, and remove prohibi- tive duties on foreign grain and breadstuff's, Lord Stanley left the cabinet and became the leader of the protectionist opposition. When, in December, 1845, Sir Eobert tendered his resignation to the queen, Lord Stanley was in- vited by her majesty, at the instance of Lord John Russell, to form a protectionist cabinet, but he declined. During the six years of Lord John Russell's tenure of the premiership, Lord Stanley added to his already high fame as an orator and a statesman by his course as leader of the opposition in the house of lords. His speech on the Irish poor laws in 1849, that on the affairs of Greece in 1850, and his expla- nation of the reasons why he declined the premiership in February, 1851, when Lord John Russell's ministry were defeated in the house of commons on Mr. Locke King's moth for an extension of the franchise, are among th< most remarkable of his forensic efforts. On the death of his father, June 30, 1851, he suc- ceeded to the earldom and the vast ancestral estates of his family in England and Ireland. On Feb. 20, 1852, Lord John Russell having sustained another defeat on the militia bill, Lord Derby was again called to construct a cabinet, and succeeded in performing the task ; but failing to obtain the support of parliament for his financial measures, he resigned in De- cember of the same year. On the fall of the coalition ministry of Lord Aberdeen in 1855, he refused an invitation to form a new cabi- net; hut on the resignation of Lord Palmer- ston in 1858, he took the seals once more as first lord of the treasury. Being defeated on a measure of parliamentary reform, he dissolved parliament; but the new house of commons passed a vote of want of confidence in June, 1859, and he was consequently forced to re- sign. For seven years he remained out of of- fice, and during that period devoted much time to the study of the classics. His transla- tion of Homer's Iliad in blank verse, published in ^1864, is one of the best versions of the great epic. He became prime minister a third time on the fall of the liberal ministry of Lord Rus- sell in June, 1800, and under his administra- tion the reform bill of 1867, establishing house- hold suffrage, was passed. The new parlia- ment, chosen on the issue of the disestablish- ment of the church in Ireland, was found to bo strongly opposed to the government, and in February, 1868, Lord Derby resigned. A statue in his honor was erected at Preston in 1878. II. Edward Henry Smith-Stanley, 15th earl, son of the preceding, born at Knowsley Park, July 21, 1826. He was educated at Rugby, and at Trinity college, Cambridge, where he took a first class in classics in 1848. Having been unsuccessful as a candidate for parliament from Lancashire in March, 1848, he set out on a tour of the United States, Canada, and the West In- dies, and during his absence was returned from Lynn Regis, which he continued to represent
 * -pi<-es. In the following year,