Background
Thomas Pelham, the second Earl of Chichester, was born on 28 April 1756, the eldest son of Thomas Pelham, first Earl of Chichester.
Thomas Pelham, the second Earl of Chichester, was born on 28 April 1756, the eldest son of Thomas Pelham, first Earl of Chichester.
He was educated at Westminster School and at Clare Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated with an M.A. in 1775. In the autumn of that year he went to Spain in order to learn Spanish, returning in early 1778 in order to pursue a military career as an officer in the Sussex militia, becoming lieutenant colonel of that regiment in 1794.
Pelhams political career began on 14 September 1780, when he was elected to the House of Commons as M.P. for Sussex. A Whig, he was committed to constitutional reform and control of the monarchy and was closely associated with Charles James Fox and other leading members of the Rockingham faction of the Whigs. In April 1782 he was appointed surveyor-general of ordnance in the government of the Marquess of Rockingham but left that office with the death of Rockingham on 1 July 1782. Nevertheless, the Duke of Portland, who became prime minister of a coalition government in 1783, made Pelham the Irish secretary in the summer of 1783. Pelham resigned from that position on the fall of the Portland government in December 1783 despite the efforts of William Pitt, the Younger, the new prime minister, to encourage him to stay in that office. For the next few years, Pelham was a staunch member of the Whig opposition in Parliament. However, he was drawn back into government with the outbreak of the French Revolution. He was attracted to Pitt’s policy of desiring peace but of financing and occasionally militarily supporting Britain’s European allies, which many of the older and more moderate Whigs wanted. As a result, Pelham became chief secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland. He remained in that post until November 1798, although he had been inactive in office from May 1798 as a result of a severe illness.
Despite his ill health, Pelham remained active in politics. On 22 January 1801 he proposed that Henry Addington should be made the speaker of the House of Commons. Pelham was offered, but refused, various offices of state at this time, including the secretaryship at war and the presidency of the Board of Trade. However, Pelham accepted the post of home secretary in the government of Henry Addington, which was formed in March 1801 as a result of the unexpected resignation of the Younger Pitt over the issue of emancipation of Roman Catholics in Ireland. Pelham rose to the House of Lords in July 1801, inheriting his father’s title of Baron Pelham of Stanmer on his father’s becoming the first Earl of Chichester. Thomas Pelham became the second Earl of Chichester on his fathers death in January 1805.
He offered to resign his office in favor of Pitt, when in 1803 Addington was discussing with Pitt the possible return of Pitt to government. The negotiations came to nothing, but Addington removed Pelham from the Home Office to the post of chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in July 1803. When Pitt did return to government in May 1804, Pelham was deprived of the Duchy of Lancaster. He then retired from high office; the only other post he took in government was that of joint postmaster-general from May 1807 until 1823, when he became the sole postmaster-general until his death in 1826.
Pelham died on 4 July 1826.
Pelham’s relations with Addington were never smooth. While Pelham supported the Treaty of Amiens with the French in early 1802, he was not happy at the fine detail of the settlement and objected that the Home Office was no longer to be responsible for colonial affairs and that he, as home secretary, was not allowed to control all of the patronage connected with Irish affairs.
He is remembered as a kind and careful man but an undistinguished home secretary.
He was married to Mary Henrietta Juliana Osborne (daughter of the fifth Duke of Leeds by his first wife), the couple had four sons, and four daughters.