Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/North, Dudley Long
NORTH, DUDLEY LONG (1748–1829), politician, baptised 14 March 1748, was the second son of Charles Long (b. 1705, d. 16 Oct. 1778), who married Mary, second daughter and coheiress of Dudley North of Little Glemham, Suffolk, and granddaughter of Sir Dudley North [q. v.] She died on 10 May 1770, aged 55, and her husband was buried in the same vault with her, in the south aisle of Saxmundham Church. Dudley was educated at the grammar school of Bury St. Edmunds, and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. 1771, M.A. 1774, and attaining much popularity among its members (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ix. 510). On the death, in 1789, of his aunt Anne, widow of the Honourable Nicholas Herbert, he assumed, in compliance with the terms of her will, the name and arms of North, and acquired the estate of Little Glemham; and in 1812, when his elder brother, Charles Long, of Hurts Hall, Saxmundham, died, he resumed the name and arms of Long, in addition to those of North. Being possessed of considerable wealth and family influence, he sat in parliament for many years. On the nomination of the Eliots he represented the Cornish borough of St. Germans from 1780 to 1784. From 1784 to 1790, and from that year until 1796, he was returned for Great Grimsby, his election in June 1790 being declared void; but the electors returned him again on 17 April 1793. As a distant relative of Frederick North, second earl of Guilford [q. v.], who then ruled the constituency, he sat for Banbury from 1790 to 1802, and from 1802 to 1806. At the general election in 1806 he was defeated, by ten votes to six, by William Praed, jun.; but when they renewed the contest at the dissolution in 1807 there was an equality of votes. A double return was made, and a fresh election took place, when North, who had also been returned for the borough of Newtown in the Isle of Wight, but had accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, was again chosen for Banbury by five votes to three, and represented it until 1812. He was member for Richmond in Yorkshire from 1812 to 1818, and for the Jedburgh boroughs from 1818 to 1820. In the latter year he was again returned for Newtown, but took the Chiltern Hundreds on 9 Feb. 1821. After an illness which had for some years secluded him from society, he died at Brompton, London, on 21 Feb. 1829, without issue. A full-length statue of him, sculptured in Italy, is in Little Glemham Church. He married on 6 Nov. 1802, by special licence, at her father's house in Arlington Street, London, the Hon. Sophia Pelham, eldest daughter of Charles Anderson Pelham, the first lord Yarborough (Hanover Square Registers, Harleian Soc. ii. 269).
North was a prominent whig, one of the chief associates in parliament of Fox, and a trusted adviser in the consultations of his party. His dinners were famous in the political world, and helped to keep the whigs together. An impediment in his speech prevented him from speaking in the House of Commons, but his sound judgment led to his being selected as one of the managers of the trial of Warren Hastings. He was a mourner at the funeral of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a pallbearer at Burke's funeral. A long letter from Burke to him on the death of Lord John Cavendish is printed in Burke's ‘Works’ (ed. 1852, ii. 362–3); and he is often mentioned in Wyndham's ‘Diary’ (pp. 76–83, 219). A sharp sarcasm of North on the acceptance by Tierney of office in the Addington administration is preserved in the account of Gillray's ‘Caricatures’ by Wright and Evans (p. 106); and it was North who, when asked by Gibbon to repeat to him Sheridan's words of praise, replied, ‘Oh! he said something about your voluminous pages.’ As a friend of Mrs. Thrale, he was introduced to Dr. Johnson, who jested on his name, and described him as ‘a man of genteel appearance, and that is all;’ but, as Boswell hastens to add, he was ‘distinguished amongst his acquaintance for acuteness of wit.’ North helped Crabbe with gifts of money and supported his application for holy orders.
[Gent. Mag. 1829, pt. i. pp. 208, 282; Beesley's Banbury, pp. 539–42; Page's Suppl. to the Suffolk Traveller, pp. 183, 191; Courtney's Parl. Representation of Cornwall, p. 293; Tom Moore's Memoirs, iv. 231, v. 30, 223; Boswell, ed. Hill, iv. 75–82; Madame d'Arblay's Diary, ii. 14; Dr. Burney's Memoirs, iii. 241; Crabbe's Works (1851 ed.), pp. 13, 28, 43, 58; Leslie and Taylor's Sir J. Reynolds, ii. 633.]