Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/499

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Lopes
479
Lord

exchequer in whole or in part of the cost of administering justice, police, and lunatics (Hansard, ccx. cols. 1131–1403; The Reminiscences of Albert Pell, edited by Thomas Mackay, p. 259). Lopes's speech showed mastery of his subject. Relief came to landowners and farmers in the Agricultural Ratings Act, passed by the conservative government in 1879. Lopes was also the author of an amendment to the public health bill of 1873, transferring to the national exchequer the payment of half the salaries of medical officers and inspectors of nuisances. He advocated, but vainly, the division of local rates between owner and occupier.

When Disraeli came into power in 1874 Lopes was appointed civil lord of the admiralty, and retained that office until 1880. He was chairman of a committee which reorganised the admiralty office, and added to the efficiency of the Naval College, Greenwich, by causing the property of the foundation to give a better return. Ill-health compelled him in 1877 to refuse the secretaryship to the treasury in succession to William Henry Smith [q. v.] On his retirement from parliamentary life in 1885 he was sworn of the privy council, but declined a peerage.

Lopes, who had been high sheriff of Devonshire in 1857, continued to make his influence felt in local politics, though his public appearances were not numerous. From 1888 to 1904 he was an alderman of the Devonshire county council, and in the last year he resigned a directorship of the Great Western railway, which he had held for forty years. A liberal supporter of the charitable institutions of Plymouth, he endowed the South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital to the amount of 14,000l., besides other donations. He was also a large subscriber to Church of England extension and endowment. A scientific farmer of much sagacity, he greatly increased the value of his estates at Maristow. On his accession to the property he had to rebuild throughout, owing to the system of long leases which prevailed; he computed that in forty years he spent 150,000l. on improvements. By prize-giving he encouraged the raising of sound stock, and he instituted a pension system for the aged poor.

Lopes died at Maristow on 20 Jan. 1908 after a few days' illness. His portrait by Mr. A. S. Cope, R.A., painted in 1900, is in the committee-room of the South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital, Plymouth. A cartoon portrait by ‘Ape’ appeared in ‘Vanity Fair’ in 1875. He married twice: (1) Bertha (d. 1872), daughter of John Yarde-Buller, first Lord Churston (2) Louisa (d. 27 April 1908), daughter of Sir Robert W. Newman, first baronet, of Mamhead, Devonshire. He had three children by his first wife, Henry Yarde Buller Lopes, fourth and present baronet, and two daughters.

[The Times and Western Morning News, 21 Jan. 1908; Royal Agricultural Society Journal, 1887, xxiii. 23; Albert Pell's Reminiscences, p. 267.]

L. C. S.


LORD, THOMAS (1808–1908), congregational minister, born of poor parents at Olney, Buckinghamshire, on 22 April 1808, was son of John Lord by his wife Hannah Austin. Mainly self-taught, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. After his family removed to Northampton in 1816 he became a Sunday school scholar and teacher. Having preached in the villages for some years he was ordained for the congregational ministry on 14 Oct. 1834. He filled successively the pastorates of Wollaston, Northamptonshire (1834–45), Brigstock (1845–63), Horncastle (1863–66), Deddington, Oxfordshire (1866–73). In 1873 he accepted a call to Great Bridge, Staffordshire, and resigning that pastorate in 1879 continued to live there, and frequently delivered occasional sermons. In 1899 he returned to Horncastle, where his only daughter, Mrs. Hodgett, resided, and still pursued his career as preacher. His hundredth birthday was celebrated at Horncastle in 1908, when he received a congratulatory telegram from King Edward VII. In his 101st year he occupied the pulpits at Horncastle, Peterborough, Lincoln, Alford, Louth, Wainfleet, Skegness, Boston, Kirkstead, and Tuddenham near Ipswich. When unable to read he recited the scriptures.

He was one of the founders of the Congregational total abstinence association, and a member of the Peace Society from its foundation and of the Liberation Society. He is said to have preached over 10,000 sermons. He died at Horncastle after a few hours' illness on 21 Aug. 1908, aged 100 years and 121 days. He married in 1830 Elizabeth Whimple (d 1889) and left two sons and a daughter.

Lord published in 1859 a memorial sermon on Sir Arthur de Capell Broke of Great Oakley Manor, Northamptonshire, who maintained an open-air mission at Stanion, a neighbouring village. Lord also printed ‘Heavenly Light, The Christian's