Background
George William Frederick Villiers was born in London on 12 January 1800, the eldest son of George Villiers and his wife, Theresa, the only daughter of John Parker, first Baron Boringdon.
George William Frederick Villiers was born in London on 12 January 1800, the eldest son of George Villiers and his wife, Theresa, the only daughter of John Parker, first Baron Boringdon.
He entered the diplomatic service while little more than a boy and in 1820 became attached to the British embassy in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1823 he became a commissioner of customs, and between 1827 and 1829 he was employed in Ireland dealing with the unions of the English and Irish excise boards. Throughout the early 1830s he was involved in negotiating a commercial treaty with France and acting as envoy to Madrid.
A Whig committed to constitutional government and reform, he joined Lord Melbourne’s ministry in 1840 as Lord Privy Seal and was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council. Soon afterward he became chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Disturbed by Lord Palmerston’s aggressive foreign policy, he was almost happy to leave office with the fall of the Melbourne ministry in July 1841.
At this stage in his life Clarendon appears to have adopted a liberal attitude toward Ireland and to have been a firm believer in free trade. In Lord Russell’s ministry he became lord lieutenant of Ireland in 1847.
He was offered the post of foreign secretary on Palmerston’s fall in December 1851, but refused. In 1852, when Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston were in serious conflict, during a brief Conservative ministry led by the Earl of Derby, it was suggested that Clarendon might be a good candidate for Whig prime minister when the political tide turned. However, this never occurred, and it was Lord Aberdeen who became Whig prime minister at the head of a coalition government between 1852 and 1855. Lord John Russell, who was foreign secretary, resigned in February 1853, creating a new opening for Clarendon.
Clarendon served as foreign secretary for five years, until February 1858.
Clarendon gained further prestige in 1855 when the Whig Lord Aberdeen resigned as prime minister and it was not at all clear whether Lord John Russell, a Whig, or Lord Derby, a Tory, would succeed him. Acting as adviser to Queen Victoria, Clarendon suggested that Lord Palmerston, a Whig, might be able to form a ministry. Palmerston accepted the post, and Clarendon continued as foreign secretary until Palmerston’s government fell in 1858 and was replaced briefly by Lord Derby’s second Tory government. When the Whig/Liberals returned to office in 1859, once again under Palmerston, Lord Russell claimed the post of foreign secretary. Clarendon refused Palmerston’s offer of another post, and instead, for the next six years, he fulfilled a number of other public duties for both Queen Victoria and the British government. Clarendon did later return to office as foreign secretary when Russell formed a ministry in 1865, following the death of Lord Palmerston; but it was a very brief period of service, from November 1865 until July 1866.
Clarendon died unexpectedly on 27 June 1870 and was buried at Watford in Hertfordshire.
While acting as a lord leutenant for Ireland, he was forced to use more coercion than he would have liked in order to deal with the Irish famine, the Young Ireland movement, and the Smith O’Brien uprising. He found that his policies offended both Catholic and Protestant interests; his life was threatened, and he became almost a prisoner in Dublin Castle. Nevertheless, he continued in this office until 1852.
His contemporaries recognized this Liberal aristocrat as one of the great foreign secretaries of the nineteenth century, his training and early experiences having made him highly suitable for the post. He might not have had the reputation and vigor of Palmerston; but he was a diplomatic, solid, and reliable advocate of peace and of British interests abroad.
Villiers married Katherine, the eldest daughter of Walter James Grimston, the first Earl of Verulam, on 4 June 1839.