Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, PC, FRS (/ˈbruː(ə)m ... ˈvoʊks/; 19 September 1778 – 7 May 1868) was a British statesman who became Lord High Chancellor and played a prominent role in passing the Reform Act 1832 and Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
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"Lord Brougham" redirects here. For other people, see Lord Brougham and Vaux.
The Lord Brougham and Vaux
Samuel Scott
7 May 1868 (aged 89)
Cannes, Second French Empire
British
Mary Anne Eden
(1785–1865)
2
Henry Brougham
Eleanora Syme
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Born in Edinburgh, Brougham helped found the Edinburgh Review in 1802 before moving to London, where he qualified as a barrister in 1808. Elected to the House of Commons in 1810 as a Whig, he was Member of Parliament for various constituencies until becoming a peer in 1830.
Brougham won popular renown for helping defeat the 1820 Pains and Penalties Bill, an attempt by the widely disliked George IV to annul his marriage to Caroline of Brunswick. He became an advocate of liberal causes including abolition of the slave trade, free trade and parliamentary reform. Appointed Lord Chancellor in 1830, he made a number of reforms intended to speed up legal cases and established the Central Criminal Court. He never regained government office after 1834 and although he played an active role in the House of Lords, he often did so in opposition to his former colleagues.
Education was another area of interest. He helped establish the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and University College London, as well as holding some academic posts, including Rector, University of Edinburgh. In later years he spent much of his time in the French town of Cannes, making it a popular resort for the British upper-classes; he died there in 1868.
Family[edit]
Brougham was said to be the father of writer Marie Blaze de Bury. Her last name was Stuart or Stewart and she was born in Oban, Scotland in 1813.[17] She was sent to France when she was nine where she completed her education.
Brougham married Mary Spalding (d. 1865), daughter of Thomas Eden, and widow of John Spalding, MP, in 1821. They had two daughters, both of whom predeceased their parents, the latter one dying in 1839. Lord Brougham and Vaux died in May 1868 in Cannes, France, aged 89 and was buried in the Cimetière du Grand Jas. [1] The cemetery is up to the present dominated by Brougham's statue, and he is honoured for his major role in building the city of Cannes.[18] His hatchment is in Ninekirks, which was then the parish church of Brougham.
The Barony of 1830 became extinct on his death, while he was succeeded in the Barony of 1860 according to the special remainder by his younger brother William Brougham.[19]
Collections[edit]
The papers of the Brougham family were deposited at University College London in 1953, having previously been purchased by C.K. Ogden.[26] The majority of the collection is formed by Henry Brougham's extensive correspondence, totalling over 50,000 items.[26] The University also holds the archive of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, which Brougham helped to establish.[27]
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Brougham wrote a prodigious number of treatises on science, philosophy, and history. Besides the writings mentioned in this article, he was the author of Dialogues on Instinct; with Analytical View of the Researches on Fossil Osteology, Lives of Statesmen, Philosophers, and Men of Science of the Time of George III, Natural Theology, etc. His last work was an autobiography written in his 84th year and published in 1871.
Brougham's Political Philosophy was included on the Cambridge syllabus for History and Political Philosophy, where it was considered among the major works on the topic along with Aristotle's Politics, François Guizot's Histoire de la civilization en Europe, and Henry Hallam's Constitutional History.[25]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). "Brougham And Vaux, Henry, 1st Lord". A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. pp. 48–49 – via Wikisource.
