The Most Honourable
The Marquess of Clanricarde
"Old Wares":
Clanricarde as caricatured by Spy
(Leslie Ward) in Vanity Fair, May 1900
Member of Parliament
for County Galway
In office
1867–1871
Preceded byUlick Canning de Burgh, Lord Dunkellin
Succeeded byMitchell Henry
Personal details
Born(1832-11-30)30 November 1832
Died12 April 1916(1916-04-12) (aged 83)
NationalityBritish
Political partyWhig \ Liberal
Parents
Relatives
Family grave of Hubert de Burgh-Canning in Highgate Cemetery

Hubert George de Burgh-Canning, 2nd Marquess of Clanricarde (English: /dˈbɜːrɡ/; d’-BERG; English: /klænˈrɪkɑːrd/; klan-RIK-ard; 30 November 1832 – 12 April 1916), styled Lord Hubert de Burgh until 1862, Lord Hubert de Burgh-Canning until 1867, and Viscount Bourke until 1874, was an Anglo-Irish ascendancy nobleman, millionaire, and politician who was the grandson of British Prime Minister George Canning.

Early life

Hubert was the son of Ulick de Burgh, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde and his wife, Harriet, daughter of British Prime Minister George Canning. He was an Attache in Turin in 1852 and rose to become Second Secretary there in 1862.[1] He assumed the surname Canning after inheriting the estates of his uncle, Earl Canning.[2]

After the death of his elder brother, Lord Dunkellin, who had been Liberal MP for County Galway from 1865 until his death in 1867, Hubert succeeded in becoming heir to both the Marquessate and also to his brother's seat. He was elected as the Liberal MP for County Galway in 1867, re-elected in 1868, and retired in 1871. After his brother's death in 1867 and before succeeding his father as Marquess in 1874, Hubert was known by the courtesy title, Viscount Bourke, which was one of his father's other subsidiary titles.[3]

Career

Hubert de Burgh-Canning was unmourned in Ireland, where he had a reputation as one of the worst and most repressive absentee landlords in the country. His estate centred on Portumna, County Galway spanned a mainly agricultural 52,000 acres (210 km2) (81 sq mi) (about 3.5% of this second-largest county), yielding about an average of £25,000 (equivalent to £2,600,000 in 2021) during his lifetime yearly in rents paid by 1,900 largely poorly agriculturally equipped and housed tenants, and was a main target during the 1887 Plan of Campaign fought for fair rents by the Irish Parliamentary Party.

Clanricarde's opposition to the plan was so obdurate that an Irish minister commented: "... what right has Clanricarde to be treated better than a lunatic or an orphan?" His land agent John Henry Blake was murdered in 1882. In 1888 the Earl wrote to Chief Secretary Balfour "the western Irish cannot be kept up to their contracts without the threat of eviction".[4]

Upon the suggestion of Arthur Balfour, the Irish members of parliament submitted a bill to parliament for the expropriation of his estates. The Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman approved the bill and denounced Clanricarde in parliament in a way described as 'scathing'. Never had Clanicarde visited his estates, despite the many thousands of families that had been evicted from them during that time, resulting in mass destitution. "So universal is the execration in which this particular nobleman is held by people of every political party that when the question of this bill was put to the vote by the speaker, liberals, liberal unionists and conservatives all voted with the Irish party, only three of the nearly 700 members of the House of Commons opposing the vote, which would otherwise have been unanimous."[5]

From 1891 onwards the Congested Districts Board attempted to compulsorily purchase the estate but were not successful until 1915.[6]

Death

He died in 1916, aged 83, a resident of 13 Hanover Square, London, and was buried on the west side of Highgate Cemetery, London. His probate was sworn in that year at £2,500,000 (equivalent to about £180,300,000 in 2021).[7][2] At his death, his vast fortune devolved upon his sister's grandson, Henry, Viscount Lascelles, who in 1922 went on to marry Princess Mary.[8]

Upon his death, his peerages became extinct, save the second creation of the earldom of Clanricarde, which passed by special remainder to the 6th Marquess of Sligo.

Arms

Coat of arms of Hubert de Burgh-Canning, 2nd Marquess of Clanricarde
Crest
A Cat-a-Mountain sejant guardant proper, collared and chained Or.
Escutcheon
Or, a cross gules in the first quarter a lion rampant sable.
Supporters
Two Cats-a-Mountain sejant guardant proper, collared and chained Or.[9][10]
Motto
UNG ROY, UNG FOY, UNG LOY (One king, one faith, one law)

Ancestry

References

  1. ↑ "Clanricarde, 2nd Marquis of cr 1825, (Hubert George de Burgh Canning) (30 Nov. 1832–13 April 1916)". WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. 2007. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U194694. ISBN 978-0-19-954089-1. Retrieved 30 April 2022.
  2. 1 2 Gwynn, S. L. (2004). "Canning, Hubert George de Burgh, second marquess of Clanricarde (1832–1916), landlord in Ireland". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32179. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 21 December 2021. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ↑ "Viscount Burke (Hansard)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
  4. ↑ Notes on Clanricarde during the Campaign
  5. ↑ Cunliffe-Owen, Margarete Letter of Marquis de Fontenoy, "Chicago Tribune, 18 December 1906
  6. ↑ "The Clanricarde Estate". Moving Here. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
  7. ↑ https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk Calendar of Probates and Administrations
  8. ↑ "The Royal Wedding: Princess Mary married to Viscount Lascelles at Westminster Abbey". The Barrier Miner. 1 March 1922. Retrieved 15 April 2023 – via Trove.
  9. ↑ Burke, John; Burke, Bernard (1844). Encyclopædia of Heraldry: Or General Armory of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Comprising a Registry of All Armorial Bearings from the Earliest to the Present Time, Including the Late Grants by the College of Arms. H. G. Bohn.
  10. ↑ Burke, Bernard (1884). The general armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; comprising a registry of armorial bearings from the earliest to the present time. University of California Libraries. London : Harrison & sons.
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