Arthur William Holland and Charles Lethbridge Kingsford and Philip Chesney Yorke and William Browning Smith and Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff

“ It is one of the peculiarities of English politics, however, that a party may come into power because it is the only available one at the time, though it may have no chance of carrying the very principle to which it owes its organized existence. Such was the case when Lord Derby, who had succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father in June 1851, was called upon to form his first administration in February 1852. ”

“ The best answer, however, which he made to the attacks of the great agitator was not the retorts of debate, effective though these were, but the beneficial legislation he was instrumental in passing. He introduced and carried the first national education act for Ireland, one result of which was the remarkable and to many almost incredible phenomenon of a board composed of Catholics, Episcopalians and Presbyterians harmoniously administering an efficient education scheme. ”

“ The term “catskin” is possibly a corruption of quatre-skin, derived from the fact that in ancient times the robes of an earl (as depicted in some early representations) were decorated with four rows of ermine, as in the robes of a modern duke, instead of the three rows to which they were restricted in later centuries. The three “catskin” earldoms are the only earldoms now in existence which date from creations prior to the 17th century. (A. W. H.*)
Thomas Stanley, 1st earl of Derby (c. 1435–1504) , was the son of Thomas Stanley, who was created Baron Stanley in 1456 and died in 1459. ”

“ In 1852 he went to India, and while travelling in that country he was appointed under-secretary for foreign affairs in his father’s first administration. From the outset of his career he was known to be a most Liberal Conservative, and in 1855 Lord Palmerston offered him the post of colonial secretary. He was much tempted by the proposal, and hurried down to Knowsley to consult his father, who called out when he entered the room, “Hallo, Stanley! what brings you here?—Has Dizzy cut his throat, or are you going to be married?” ”

“ He was secretary of state for war and for the colonies and president of the board of trade; and was governor-general of Canada from 1888 to 1893. He died on the 14th of June 1908, when his eldest son, Edward George Villiers Stanley, became earl of Derby. As Lord Stanley the latter had been member of parliament for the West Houghton division of Lancashire from 1892 to 1906; he was financial secretary to the War Office from 1900 to 1903, and postmaster-general from 1903 to 1905. ”

“ His grandfather, Sir John Stanley (d. 1414) , had founded the fortunes of his family by marrying Isabel Lathom, the heiress of a great estate in the hundred of West Derby in Lancashire; he was lieutenant of Ireland in 1389–1391, and again in 1399–1401, and in 1405 received a grant of the lordship of Man from Henry IV. The future earl of Derby was a squire to Henry VI. in 1454, but not long afterwards married Eleanor, daughter of the Yorkist leader, Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury. ”

“ Edward Henry Stanley, 15th earl of Derby (1826–1893) , eldest son of the 14th earl, was educated at Rugby and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a high degree and became a member of the society known as the Apostles. In March 1848 he unsuccessfully contested the borough of Lancaster, and then made a long tour in the West Indies, Canada and the United States. ”

“ He succeeded Lord Granville as chancellor of the University of London in 1891, and remained in that position till his death. He lived much in Lancashire, managed his enormous estates with great skill, and did a great amount of work as a local magnate. He married in 1870 Maria Catharine, daughter of the 5th earl de la Warr, and widow of the 2nd marquess of Salisbury.
The earl left no children and he was succeeded as 16th earl by his brother Frederick Arthur Stanley (1841–1908) , who had been made a peer as Baron Stanley of Preston in 1886. ”

“ After making allowance, however, for this deflecting agency, it must be admitted that in the highest quality of the statesman, “aptness to be right,” he was surpassed by none of his contemporaries, or—if by anybody—by Sir George Cornewall Lewis alone. He would have been more at home in a state of things which did not demand from its leading statesman great popular power ”

“ After travelling abroad he was chosen member of parliament for Liverpool in 1625, was created knight of the Bath on the occasion of Charles’s coronation in 1626, and was joined with his father the same year as lieutenant of Lancashire and Cheshire and chamberlain of Chester, and in the administration of the Isle of Man, being appointed subsequently lord-lieutenant of North Wales. ”

“ Reference may be made especially to the speech he delivered on the 4th of March 1831 on the adjourned debate on the second reading of the bill, which was marked by all the higher qualities of his oratory. Apart from his connexion with the general policy of the government, Stanley had more than enough to have employed all his energies in the management of his own department. The secretary of Ireland has seldom an easy task ”

“ Ser. iii. 246; Seacombe’s House of Stanley; Clarendon’s Hist. of the Rebellion; Gardiner’s Hist. of the Civil War and Protectorate; The Land of Home Rule, by Spencer Walpole (1893) ; Hist. of the Isle of Man, by A. W. Moore (1900) ; Manx Soc. publications, vols. 3, 25, 27. (P. C. Y.)
Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley, 14th earl of Derby (1799–1869) , the “Rupert of Debate,” born at Knowsley in Lancashire on the 29th of March 1799, grandson of the 12th earl and eldest son of Lord Stanley, subsequently (1834) 13th earl of Derby (1775–1851) . ”