Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/101

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Pskington
95
Pakington

the appointment of a royal commission on popular education (ib. cxxviii. 1184). On 8 March 1858 he was appointed first lord of the admiralty in Lord Derby's second administration, and on 25 Feb. 1859 he announced in his speech on the navy estimates that the government had determined to make the experiment of building two iron-cased ships, which were afterwards known as the Warrior and the Black Prince (ib. clii. 910–912; and see clxix. 1100–1). Upon Lord Derby's defeat in June 1859 Pakington resigned office, and was created a G.C.B. on the 30th of that month (London Gazette, 1859, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 2361). He was appointed first lord of the admiralty again in Lord Derby's third administration in June 1866; and on 8 March 1867 succeeded General Peel as secretary of state for war (ib. 1867, vol. i. pt. i. p. 1594). While returning thanks for his re-election at Droitwich on 13 March 1867 he indiscreetly revealed the secret history of the ministerial Reform Bill (see Berrow's Worcester Journal, 16 March 1867), in consequence of which his colleagues were exposed to much ridicule, and the measure became known as the ‘Ten Minutes Bill.’ He remained in office as secretary of war until Disraeli's resignation in December 1868.

At the general election in February 1874 Pakington was defeated at Droitwich, and on 6 March following he was created Baron Hampton of Hampton-Lovett, and of Westwood in the county of Worcester. He took his seat in the House of Lords on the 10th of the same month (Journals of the House of Lords, cvi. 9–10), and spoke there for the first time on 22 May following, when he moved a resolution in favour of the appointment of a minister of public instruction (Parl. Debates, 3rd ser. ccxix. 683–8). He was appointed first civil service commissioner in November 1875, and spoke for the last time in the House of Lords on 1 Aug. 1879 (ib. 3rd ser. ccxlviii. 1837). He died in Eaton Square, London, on 9 April 1880, aged 81, and was buried on the 15th in the family mausoleum in Hampton-Lovett Church, where there is a stained-glass window to his memory.

Hampton was a conscientious and painstaking administrator. Though a staunch churchman himself, he was tolerant in religious matters; and his views on the subject of education, especially with regard to unsectarian teaching, were considerably in advance of his party.

He married, first, on 14 Aug. 1822, Mary, only child of Moreton Aglionby Slaney of Shiffnal, Shropshire, by whom he had one son, John Slaney, who succeeded as second Baron Hampton, and died on 26 April 1893. His first wife died on 6 Jan. 1843. He married, secondly, on 4 June 1844, Augusta Anne, daughter of the Right Rev. George Murray, D.D., bishop of Rochester, by whom he had one son, Herbert Perrott Murray, who succeeded as third Baron Hampton on the death of his half-brother. His second wife died on 23 Feb. 1848. He married, thirdly, on 5 June 1851, Augusta, daughter of Thomas Champion de Crespigny, and widow of Colonel Thomas Henry Davies of Elmley Park, Worcestershire, by whom he had no children. His widow died on 8 Feb. 1892, aged 92.

He was chairman of the Worcestershire quarter sessions from 1834 to 1858, and was gazetted lieutenant-colonel of the Worcestershire yeomanry cavalry in November 1859. He was an elder brother of the Trinity House, and served as president of the Institute of Naval Architects for twenty-one years. He was created a D.C.L. of Oxford University on 7 June 1853, and in October 1871 presided over the meeting of the Social Science Association at Leeds. Three of his speeches were separately published, as well as an address on national education delivered by him on 18 Nov. 1856 to the members oof the Manchester Athenæum, London, 8vo.

[Walpole's Hist. of England, vols. iii. iv. v.; M'Carthy's Hist. of our own Times; Turberville's Worcestershire in the Nineteenth Century, 1852; Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, 1884, i. 278, 351, ii. 28, 74, 188, 358, 367; Men of the Time, 1879, pp. 484–5; Annual Register, 1880, pt. ii. pp. 159–60; Times, 10 and 16 April 1880; Illustrated London News, Berrow's Worcester Journal, and the Worcestershire Chronicle for 17 April 1880; Burke's Peerage, 1893, p. 658; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886, p. 1058; Stapylton's Eton School Lists, 1864, pp. 73, 81; Haydn's Book of Dignities, 1890; Official Returns of Lists of Members of Parliament, pt. ii. pp. 372, 389, 406, 423, 438, 455, 471, 487.]

G. F. R. B.

PAKINGTON, WILLIAM (d. 1390), chronicler, was clerk and treasurer of the household of Edward, prince of Wales [q. v.], the ‘Black prince,’ in Gascony. He was, it is believed, a native of Warwickshire, where there are two villages named Packington (Fuller, Worthies, ii. 474), though there is also a village with that name on the border of Leicestershire, besides a hamlet in Weeford, Staffordshire. In 1349 he was presented by the king to the rectory of East Wretham, Norfolk, and in 1377 held the wardenship of the royal hospital of St. Leonard at Derby. Richard II appointed him keeper of the wardrobe in 1379, and on 6 Jan. 1381 chancellor of the exchequer.