Constituency ; Chelsea 1868-86, Forest of Dean 1892-1911
Charles was one of the first MPs for the new seat of Chelsea. He is one of the great "might have beens" of British politics.
Charles was the son of the baronet of the same name who was MP for Wallingford. He was educated at Westminster and Cambridge where he became President of the Union Society. Unlike his moderate father Charles was an ardent Radical although he was also an imperialist.
Charles flirted with republicanism in a speech in 1871 but was forced to recant his position due to public outrage when the Prince of Wales fell ill.. He had a good relationship with Hartington realising that his main concern was with party unity rather than ideological opposition to radical politics
In 1880 Gladstone made Charles Under-secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Victoria demanded another recantation of his republicanism before she would consent to his appointment. He was promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Local Government Board in 1882 partly to balance out Bright's departure. He helped negotiate the passage of the Third Reform Act in 1884. That same year he chaired a Royal Commission on housing the working classes.He was favourable to female suffrage , trade union rights and reducing working hours. He was a useful ally to Chamberlain but took a different view of Home Rule.
But Charles had skeletons in his closet. He was sleeping with his brother's mother-in-law who was the wife of his Liberal colleague Thomas Smith. In 1885 another of their daughters, Virginia accused him of seducing her three years earlier. She was also married to a Liberal MP, Donald Crawford. He sued for divorce and in a paradoxical judgement the judge found that she had been guilty of adultery with Charles by her confession and granted the decree ni si but also said there was no admissible evidence against Charles and dismissed him from the case with costs.
This unsatisfactory outcome and the goading of the Pall Mall Gazette under the crusading W T Stead led to Charles taking legal action opposing the decree absolute in an attempt to clear his name. Roy Jenkins describes his lawyers' advice as "perhaps the worst professional advice ever given". The idea seems to have been to try and subject Virginia to a harsh cross-examination but instead Charles had to appear in the witness box where he suffered a harrowing cross-examination by Henry Matthews which revealed that he'd redacted his diary to hide embarrassing assignations. The jury decided Virginia was probably telling the truth.
Following the verdict it was open season on Charles with numerous other women claiming to have been bedded by him and wild rumours about his peccadilloes circulating. He was threatened with a trial for perjury. He had already lost Chelsea in the 1886 election in which his nemesis Matthews not only entered Parliament but was promoted at the queen's insistence to Home Secretary. In 1889 a proposal to nominate him as a London County Council foundered partly due to women's protests.
Charles subsequently spent a lot of time and money on trying to exonerate himself . His partial rehabilitation began in 1892 when he returned to Parliament as MP for the Forest of Dean. He chaired a group of Labour and radical Liberal MPs in the 1900s.He hoped for a seat in Campbell-Bannerman's Cabinet in 1906 but it wasn't forthcoming. As Chancellor of the Exchequer Asquith made him chair of a select committee to look at his proposed new tax rates. Charles. as Roy Jenkins put it "old and arid with disappointment " , opposed them but was over-ruled by the rest of the committee. he introduced a motion of protest at the Czar's visit in 1908.
He died in 1911 aged 67. A local hospital was named after him.
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