Thursday, 31 October 2013
305 Sir Frederick Leveson-Gower
Constituency : Derby 1847, Stoke-upon-Trent 1852-7, Bodmin 1859-85
Frederick was the younger brother of the prominent Whig Lord Granville and a cousin of Lord Hartington. He was educated at Eton and Oxford and became a barrister. Frederick stood for Derby in 1847 under the patronage of his uncle the Duke of Devonshire and was elected then unseated on petition due to his agent's misdemeanour. He did not contest the by-election. In 1851 he started working for the Foreign Office. The following year another cousin the Duke of Sutherland put him in at Stoke-upon-Trent. In 1856 he accompanied his brother on his visit to Russia for Alexander II's coronation. He was defeated in 1857 due to liberal division over China but returned for the safer seat of Bodmin two years later.
Bodmin was under the influence of the landowning MP for East Cornwall Thomas Agar-Robartes whose nominee Frederick was. However he always faced a contest, more often than not against ambitious fellow Liberals.
Frederick was well-travelled and socially popular.
Frederick had good relations with Gladstone but twice refused office ( Chief Whip and Postmaster-General ) from him and remained on the backbenches.
Frederick stood down in 1885. In 1905 he published the autobiographical Bygone Years. He died in 1907 aged 88. His only son George was also an MP
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