Pelham MSS. (Addit. MS. 33119, ff. 161–176). During the debate in the House of Lords on the Union Resolutions on 19 March 1799, his administration was severely criticised by Lord Lansdowne. Camden replied that he had acted as just and humane a part as was practicable (Parl. Hist. xxxiv. 680). On 14 Aug. he was created a knight of the Garter. He held the post of secretary of state for war in Pitt's administration from May 1804 to July 1805, and there was some talk of reappointing him lord lieutenant of Ireland whenever a vacancy occurred. On 10 July he succeeded Sidmouth as president of the council, and held office till 5 Feb. 1806, and again from 26 March 1807 to 11 June 1812. He was master of Trinity House from 7 Dec. 1809 to 10 June 1816, and was appointed a governor of the Charterhouse on 29 April 1811. He was created Marquis of Camden and Earl of Brecknock on 7 Sept. 1812; LL.D. of Cambridge in 1832, and on 12 Dec. 1834 was elected chancellor of the university. He seldom took any prominent part in the debates in the House of Lords. As secretary for war he moved the second reading of the Additional Force Bill on 25 June 1804, and more than once, on subsequent occasions, defended that measure at considerable length. He supported the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in 1817, and spoke in favour of the Irish Insurrection Bill on 10 Feb. 1822. He consistently opposed catholic emancipation till 1825, but spoke and voted for the third reading of the Roman Catholic Bill on 10 April 1829. His opinions were not regarded as carrying great weight, and he was described by Canning, with more truth than politeness, as ‘useless lumber in the ministry’ (Abbot, Diary, ii. 180). He died at his seat, the Wilderness, in Kent, on 8 Oct. 1840, in the eighty-second year of his age. He married, on 31 Dec. 1785, Frances (d. 1829), daughter and sole heiress of William Molesworth, and by her had issue George Charles, second marquis Camden, born in 1799, and three daughters. A portrait, by Hoppner, was published in Fisher's ‘National Portrait Gallery’ in 1829.
[Doyle's Official Baronage; Gent. Mag. 1840, pt. ii. p. 651; Grattan's Life and Times of Henry Grattan; Plowden's Hist. Review of Ireland; Auckland Corresp.; Dunfermline's Memoirs of Sir Ralph Abercromby; Stanhope's Life of W. Pitt; Abbot's Diary and Corresp.; Parl. Debates, 1804–30 passim, but particularly ii. 817, iii. 483, 797, iv. 706, vii. 273, xx. 675, xxxvi. 1051, new ser. vi. 192, xiii. 677, xxi. 620, xxiii. 501. Camden's Correspondence with the Earl of Chichester and the Duke of Portland, preserved in the Pelham MSS. in the British Museum, has been utilised in Lecky's Hist. of England, vols. vii. and viii. passim. For specific references see Addit. MSS. 33101 ff. 146–370, 33102 ff. 15–123, 33103 ff. 85, 97, 101, 103, 126, 128, 132, 136, 152–8, 33105 ff. 18–441, 33109 f. 19, 33112 ff. 146–50, 156, 189–93, 410, 438, 33441 ff. 76, 78, 80.]
PRATT, JOHN TIDD (1797–1870), registrar of friendly societies, second son of John Pratt, surgeon, Kennington, Surrey, was born in London on 13 Dec. 1797. He was admitted a student at the Inner Temple on 2 April 1819, was called to the bar on 26 Nov. 1824, and went the home circuit. From 1828 to his death he was consulting barrister to the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt. He was counsel to certify the rules of savings banks and friendly societies from 1834 to 1846, and registrar of friendly societies from 1846 to his death. To the public he rendered efficient service, by disclosing, as far as official restraints allowed him, the unsound condition of some of the benefit and friendly societies, and by recommending to the legislature modes of remedying their defects. He was in the commission of the peace for Middlesex, Westminster, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and the Cinque ports. He died at 29 Abingdon Street, Westminster, on 9 Jan. 1870. His wife, Anne, died on 25 Nov. 1875.
He edited J. B. Bosanquet and C. Puller's ‘New Reports of Cases argued in the Court of Common Pleas and other Courts,’ 1826; E. Bott's ‘Laws relating to the Poor,’ 6th edit. 1827; and W. Woodfall's ‘Law of Landlord and Tenant,’ 1829. His ‘History of the Savings Banks in England and Wales,’ 1830, 2nd edit. 1842, is interesting and accurate, and his manuals, ‘The Law relating to Highways,’ 1835, (13th edit. 1893), and ‘The Law relating to Watching and Lighting Parishes,’ 1850, (5th edit. 1891), are still in use. Other works by him are:
- ‘An Abstract of all the printed Acts of Parliament for the establishment of Courts of Request,’ 1824.
- ‘A digested Index to the Term Reports analytically arranged, containing all the Points of Law determined in the King's Bench, 1785 to 1825, in the Common Pleas 1788 to 1825, and in the Exchequer, 1792 to 1825, with Notes,’ 1826.
- ‘An Epitome of the Law of Landlord and Tenant,’ 1826.
- ‘A Collection of the late Statutes passed for the administration of
