Francis Burdett, the son of the Baronet of Foremark, was born on 25th
January 1770. After being educated at Westminster
School and Oxford University, he went
on a long tour of Europe. Burdett returned to England in 1793 and
soon afterwards married Sophia Coutts, the daughter of the extremely
wealthy banker, Thomas Coutts. On marriage,
Sophia received a dowry of £25,000.
In 1797 Coutts purchased the rotten borough of Boroughbridge
in Yorkshire from the Duke of Newcastle for £4,000. Coutts gave
the seat to his son-in-law and later that year Burdett became a member
of the House of Commons.
In Parliament Francis Burdett refused to join the Whigs
or the Tories. This enabled him to act as
an independent. He opposed the suspension of Habeas
Corpus in 1796 and criticised all attempts by the government to
suppress individual freedom.
Burdett was one of the few members of the House
of Commons that supported the idea of parliamentary reform. Radicals
in London approached Burdett and asked him to stand as their candidate
for the county of Middlesex. He was elected for Middlesex in 1802,
but was defeated in the elections held in 1804 and 1806. It has been
estimated that Burdett spent £100,000 during these two elections.
Burdett now switched to Westminster,
the constituency with a reputation for electing Radicals. At this
time, Westminster had one of the largest electoral rolls in England.
Most of the 13,863 voters were shopkeepers and artisans who had a
strong dislike of aristocratic privilege. Sir Francis Burdett easily
won the 1807 election, polling more votes than the combined total
of the three defeated candidates.
Sir Francis
Burdett was now seen as the leader of the Radicals in the House of
Commons. Burdett introduced motions for parliamentary reform and supported
all attempts to expose government corruption. In 1819 he lead the
campaign for an independent inquiry into the Peterloo
Massacre.
Burdett
was also a strong advocate of religious toleration and several times
attempted to persuade Parliament to grant Catholics equal rights with
Protestants. The Catholic Emancipation Act
was finally passed in 1829. Burdett also had the satisfaction of seeing
the start of parliamentary reform with the passing of the 1832
Reform Act.
As he got older, Burdett became more conservative. In his sixties
he began to argue that the Catholic Emancipation
Act and the 1832 Reform Act had gone
too far. These opinions upset the Radicals and his thirty years as
M.P. for Westminster came to an end
in 1837.
Burdett's views were now very conservative and he was approached by
the Tories to be their candidate in North
Wiltshire. Sir Francis Burdett accepted their offer and remained the
Tory M.P. for North Wiltshire until his death on 23rd January 1844.
Burdett's daughter, Angela Burdett-Coutts,
was also an active supporter of social reform.
James Gillray,
attack on Sir Francis Burdett
(1)
Sir Francis Burdett, speech on the Peterloo
Massacre in the House of Commons (15th May, 1821)
The pretence of the people having
carried arms to the meeting was utterly groundless; and to talk of
their having commenced the attack upon the armed soldiers, was, on
the face of it, absurd and ridiculous. The people knew they had no
means of repelling the attack. They thought they had assembled under
the protection of the law, and they knew they had no other protection
than that law.
The wretches who had perpetrated
the massacre at Manchester were at the time in a state of intoxication.
When they attacked, sword in hand, the people fled, or attempting
to fly, from the dreadful charge made upon them; but, to their horror
and surprise, they found flight impracticable; for the avenues of
the place were closed by armed men. On one side they were driven back
at the point of the bayonet by the infantry; while on the other they
were cut down by the yeomanry.
An idea might be formed of the violent and indiscriminate manner of
the massacre, when it was known that these yeomanry, in their fury
and blindness, actually cut down some of their own troops; for the
constables on that occasion were armed, and some of them had fallen
under the hoofs of the yeomanry.
Lord Sidmouth, wrote a letter dated Whitehall, August 21, addressed
to the Manchester magistrates, and which expressed, by command of
the majesty, "the great satisfaction" the king derived,
"from their prompt, decisive, and efficient measures for the
preservation of the public tranquillity." It was monstrous to
declare that the king of England could have derived "great satisfaction"
from the perpetration of these horrid crimes.
Francis Burdett and William
Cobbett at the 1806 Middlesex election
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