Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton

{{Infobox officeholder

| honorific-prefix = The Right Honourable

| name = The Lord Houghton

| honorific-suffix = FRS

| image = Milnes.jpg

| imagesize = 200px

| caption = Lord Houghton

| birth_date = {{birth-date|19 June 1809}}

| birth_place = London, England

| death_date = {{death-date and age|11 August 1885|19 June 1809}}

| death_place = Vichy, France

| nationality = British

| party = Tory
Whig

| alma_mater = Trinity College, Cambridge

| spouse = Hon. Annabel Crewe (d. 1874)

| children = 3, including Florence and Robert

| father = Robert Pemberton Milnes

}}

Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, FRS (19 June 1809 – 11 August 1885) was an English poet, patron of literature and a politician who strongly supported social justice.

Background and education

Milnes was born in London, the son of Robert Pemberton Milnes, of Fryston Hall, Castleford, West Yorkshire, and the Honourable Henrietta, daughter of Robert Monckton-Arundell, 4th Viscount Galway. His grandmother was Rachel Slater Milnes (née Busk, 1760–1835), niece of Sir Wadsworth Busk.{{cite book |last1=Burke |first1=Bernard |title=A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of ... - Busk of Ford's Grove |date=1894 |publisher=Harrison |page=267 |isbn=9780394487267 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=93M-AQAAIAAJ&dq=richard+slater+milnes+rachel+busk+wadsworth+busk&pg=PA267 |access-date=12 October 2021}} Milnes was educated privately, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827.{{acad|id=MLNS827RM|name=Milnes, Richard Monckton}} There he was drawn into a literary set, and became a member of the famous Apostles Club, which then included Alfred Lord Tennyson, Arthur Hallam, Richard Chenevix Trench, Joseph Williams Blakesley, and others. After graduating with an M.A. in 1831, Milnes travelled abroad, spending some time at the University of Bonn.

He went to Italy and Greece, and published in 1834 a volume of Memorials of a Tour in some Parts of Greece, describing his experiences.{{sfn|Saunders|1894}}

Political career

Milnes returned to London in 1837, and was elected to Parliament as a member for Pontefract as a Conservative. In parliament, he interested himself particularly in the question of copyright and the conditions of reformatory schools. He left Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel's party over the Corn Law controversy, and was afterwards identified in politics with Lord Palmerston. His easy good nature had the effect that his political career was viewed with less seriousness by his contemporaries than it might otherwise have been. In 1848, he went to Paris to see something of the revolution, and to fraternise with both sides. On his return he wrote, as a ‘Letter to Lord Lansdowne,' 1848, a pamphlet on the events of that year, in which he offended the conservatives by his sympathy with continental liberalism, and in particular with the struggle of Italy against Austria. During the Chartist riots of 1848, Matthew Arnold wrote to his mother:

Tell Miss Martineau it is said here that Monckton Milnes refused to be sworn in a special constable, that he might be free to assume the post of President of the Republic at a moment's notice.George W. E. Russell, Collections & Recollections (Revised edition, Smith Elder & Co, London, 1899), at page 53.

Milnes shared similar interests and concerns - such as female education and slavery in the United States - with his relative Harriet Martineau whose niece, educationalist Frances Lupton, was the sister-in-law of Anna Jane Lupton (née Busk), a second cousin of Milnes' father.{{cite web |last1=Christie's |title=Christie's - Live Auction, Books - MARTINEAU, Harriet (1802-1876). Two autograph letters signed to Richard Monckton Milne |date=2022 |url=https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-266062 |access-date=2 January 2023}}{{cite web |title=Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw43336/Richard-Monckton-Milnes-1st-Baron-Houghton?LinkID=mp02289&role=sit&rNo=12 |publisher=National Portrait Gallery, London |access-date=20 October 2021}}{{cite book |last1=Reid |first1=T. W. |title=The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes: First Lord Houghton, Volume 2 |date=1890 |publisher=Cassell |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=otRaAAAAMAAJ |access-date=2 January 2023}} Frances's second cousin was local politician Philip Meadows Martineau (1831-1911) who joined Milnes as a member of the Early English Text Society as did her son, Francis Martineau Lupton, also a local politician and Lord Tennyson.{{cite book |title=Early English Text Society (Series).: Original series - 6th Report |date=1870 |publisher=N. Trubner & Co |page=9, 24-30 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iTVMAAAAcAAJ&dq=P+M+Martineau++Francis+Martineau+Lupton&pg=PA34 |access-date=10 November 2023}}

In 1863, Palmerston elevated Milnes to the peerage as Baron Houghton, of Great Houghton in the West Riding of the County of York.{{London Gazette |issue=22760 |date=7 August 1863 |page=3945 }}

George W. E. Russell said of him: "As years advanced he became not (as the manner of most men is) less Liberal, but more so; keener in sympathy with all popular causes; livelier in his indignation against monopoly and injustice."George W. E. Russell, Collections & Recollections (Revised edition, Smith Elder & Co, London, 1899), at page 57.

Literary career and interests

File:Lord Houghton.jpg

Milnes' literary career was often influenced by church matters. He wrote a tract in 1841, which was praised by John Henry Newman. He took part in the discussion about "Essays and Reviews", defending the tractarian position in One Tract More (1841). He published two volumes of verse in 1838, Memorials of Residence upon the Continent and Poems of Many Years, Poetry for the People in 1840 and Palm Leaves in 1844. He also wrote a Life and Letters of Keats in 1848, the material for which was largely provided by the poet's friend, Charles Armitage Brown. Milnes' ballads were among the most popular of their day.{{sfn|Saunders|1894}} In 1868, Lord Houghton was elected to the Royal Society.{{cite web |publisher=Royal Society |title=Fellows 1660–2007 |url=https://royalsociety.org/~/media/Royal_Society_Content/about-us/fellowship/Fellows1660-2007.pdf |access-date=13 June 2016}} In 1870, he was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society.[http://www.americanantiquarian.org/memberlistm American Antiquarian Society Members Directory]

Despite his piety, he had apparently an almost unsurpassed collection of erotic literature,{{cite book | title=A history of pornography | first=Harford Montgomery | last=Hyde | author-link=H. Montgomery Hyde | publisher=Heinemann | year=1965 | page=14 }} which he bequeathed to the British Library, a collection known to few in his lifetime.{{cn|date=June 2024}} A man whom his biographer Saunders said, "had many fine tastes and some coarse ones",{{sfn|Saunders|1894}} Milnes authored The Rodiad, a pornographic poem on the subject of flagellation.{{cite book | title=Gendering the nation: studies in modern Scottish literature | first=Christopher | last=Whyte | publisher=Edinburgh University Press | year=1995 | isbn=0-7486-0619-X | page=[https://archive.org/details/genderingnations0000unse/page/216 216] | url=https://archive.org/details/genderingnations0000unse/page/216 }}{{cite book | first=James G. | last=Nelson | title=Publisher to the Decadents: Leonard Smithers in the Careers of Beardsley, Wilde, Dowson | publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press | year=2000 | isbn=0-271-01974-3 | page=10 }}

However, his chief distinctions were his sense of literary merit in others and the way he fostered it. He was surrounded by the most brilliant men of his time, many of whom he had been the first to acclaim, such as American Literary pioneer Joaquin Miller{{cite book |last1=Peterson |first1=Martin |title=Joaquin Miller: Literary Frontiersman |date=1937 |publisher=Stanford University Press |pages=64, 75, 76}}. His reputation rests largely on the part he played, as a man of influence in society and in moulding public opinion on literary matters, in connection with his large circle of talented friends. He secured a pension for Tennyson and, as an abolitionist, helped to make Ralph Waldo Emerson known in Britain. He was one of the earliest champions of Algernon Charles Swinburne and helped David Gray by writing a preface for The Luggie.{{sfn|Saunders|1894}} He helped to obtain a job for Coventry Patmore at the British Museum. He was, in the traditional sense, a patron of literature, who never abused the privileges of his position.

=Women's rights=

He admired the literacy brilliance in female writers and was a firm friend of the Gaskell family of Manchester. A champion of women's rights, in 1871 he served as a vice-president on the Leeds Committee of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science{{cite book |last1=Reilly |first1=C. |title=Mid-Victorian Poetry, 1860-1879 - Lord Houghton |date=1999 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |page=316|isbn=184714179X |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LAbfBAAAQBAJ&dq=Lord+Houghton+Milne+female+education&pg=PA316 |quote=..a champion of ...women's rights...}}{{cite book |title=National Association for the Promotion of Social Science - Leeds Meeting (1871) |date=1872 |publisher=Head, Hole & Co, Paternoster Row, London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2ugCAAAAYAAJ&dq=national+association+for+the+promotion+of+social+science+Leeds+Darnton+Lupton+Lord+Houghton&pg=PR20 |quote=Local Officers of the Leeds Meeting - Vice-Presidents...[include]...Duke of Devonshire...Sir Titus Salt...Darnton Lupton...Lord Houghton...Secretaries - Darnton Lupton, Jun.}} and was president of the association in 1873. He supported Meta, the daughter of novelist Elizabeth Gaskell in her work as the Representative of the Manchester Ladies' Educational Association and on The North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women. The Spectator reported upon Meta's death in 1913 that, "Lord Houghton once said that the conversation and society to be met with in the house of the Gaskells at Manchester – Plymouth Grove – were the one thing which made life in that city tolerable for people of literary tastes".{{cite book|last1=Murray|first1=J. H.|title=The Englishwoman's Review of Social and Industrial Questions: 1872|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y4O_DQAAQBAJ&q=Frances+elizabeth+Lupton+Leeds+Manchester+meta&pg=PT112|publisher=Janet Horowitz Murray, Myra Stark |date= 19 December 2016|isbn=9781315411194|access-date=25 April 2017|quote=....Meta Gaskell.... a member of the North of England Council for Education of Woman...}}{{cite book|title=The Englishwoman's Review of Social and Industrial Questions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B6FBAQAAMAAJ&q=the+english+woman+manchester+review++frances++lupton+meta|publisher=Garland Publishing |year=1985 |isbn = 9780824037291|orig-year= 1874|access-date=25 April 2014|quote=Josephine E. Butler, President of .......Frances Elizabeth Lupton, Representative of the Leeds Ladies' Educational Association. ... Meta Gaskell, Representative of the Manchester Ladies' Educational Association....Ann J. Clough, Member of Executive...}}{{cite web|title=Miss Meta Gaskell|url=http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/1st-november-1913/24/miss-meta-gaskell|work=The Spectator |date= 1 November 1913|access-date=25 April 2017|quote=LORD HOUGHTON once said that the conversation and society to be met with in the house of the Gaskells at Manchester were the one thing which made life in that city tolerable for people of literary tastes. Miss Meta Gaskell, who died last Sunday...}}{{cite web|title=Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Volume 19|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bBLyAAAAMAAJ&q=manchester+plymouth+grove+Frances+Lupton&pg=PA720|publisher=The Society |year=1871| pages= 719–720|access-date=25 April 2014|quote=Announcement by the Council – Education of Girls – The following have agreed to be members of the Committee....Miss Gaskell, Manchester....Mrs Baden-Powell.....Mrs Charles Darwin...Erasmus Darwin Esq...Duchess of St Albans....Mrs Frances Lupton, Leeds....Miss Thackeray.....Henry Sidgwick Esq. Trinity College, Cambridge,...Mrs Kitchener...Miss Emily Davies.....}}

Personal life

Milnes was a persistent suitor of Florence Nightingale (who finally refused to marry him), and one of her staunchest supporters along with the statesman Sidney Herbert. On 30 July 1851, he married the Honourable Annabella Hungerford Crewe, daughter of John Crewe, 2nd Baron Crewe.{{sfn|Saunders|1894}} Together they had three children:

Hon. Amicia Henrietta Milnes (d. 4 Jul 1902). She married Sir Gerald FitzGerald. They had one known son, archaeologist Capt. Gerald Milnes FitzGerald (b. 5 October 1883).
Hon. Florence Ellen Hungerford Milnes (d. 4 Apr 1923). She married Maj.-Gen. Arthur Henry Henniker-Major, son of John Henniker-Major, 4th Baron Henniker. They had no issue.
Lord Robert Offley Ashburton Crewe-Milnes, 1st and last Marquess of Crewe (12 Jan 1858 – 20 Jun 1945)

She died in 1874. Lord Houghton died at Vichy, France, in August 1885, aged 76, and was buried at Fryston. He was succeeded in the barony by his son, Robert, who became a prominent Liberal statesman and was created Earl of Crewe in 1895 and Marquess of Crewe in 1911.

Richard and Annabella's two daughters were Amicia Henrietta and the novelist Florence Henniker.{{cite book|last=Pite|first=Ralph|title=Thomas Hardy:The Guarded Life|location=London|publisher=Picador|page=[https://archive.org/details/thomashardyguard0000pite_w5r1/page/329 329]|year=2006|isbn=978-0330481861|url=https://archive.org/details/thomashardyguard0000pite_w5r1/page/329}}

Milnes took an interest in parapsychology and was a member of the Society for Psychical Research.Oppenheim, Janet. (1988). The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850–1914. Cambridge University Press. p. 135. {{ISBN|978-0521347679}}

References

;Attribution

{{DNB|first=Thomas Bailey|last=Saunders|wstitle=Milnes, Richard Monckton|volume=38|pages= }}
{{EB1911|wstitle=Houghton, Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron}}