| The Right Honourable The Lord Eversley PC, DL |
|
|---|---|
| First Commissioner of Works | |
| In office 29 November 1881 – 13 February 1885 |
|
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Prime Minister | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Preceded by | William Patrick Adam |
| Succeeded by | The Earl of Rosebery |
| In office 18 August 1892 – 10 March 1894 |
|
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Prime Minister | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Preceded by | Hon. David Plunket |
| Succeeded by | Herbert Gladstone |
| Postmaster General | |
| In office 7 November 1884 – 9 June 1885 |
|
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Prime Minister | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Preceded by | Henry Fawcett |
| Succeeded by | Lord John Manners |
| President of the Local Government Board | |
| In office 1894 – 21 June 1895 |
|
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Prime Minister | The Earl of Rosebery |
| Preceded by | Henry Fowler |
| Succeeded by | Henry Chaplin |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 12 June 1831 |
| Died | 19 April 1928 (aged 96) |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Liberal Party |
| Spouse(s) | Lady Constance Reynolds-Moreton (d. 1929) |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
George John Shaw-Lefevre, 1st Baron Eversley PC, DL (12 June 1831 – 19 April 1928) was a British Liberal Party politician. In a ministerial career that spanned thirty years, he was twice First Commissioner of Works and also served as Postmaster General and President of the Local Government Board.
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Eversley was the only son of Sir John Shaw-Lefevre and Rachel Emily, daughter of Ichabod Wright. He was the nephew of Charles Shaw-Lefevre, 1st Viscount Eversley, Speaker of the House of Commons. He was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge,[1] and was called to the Bar, Inner Temple, in 1855.[2]
Eversley stood unsuccessfully as the Liberal candidate for Winchester in 1859 but was successfully returned for Reading in 1863, a seat he held until 1885.[3] He carried a vote in House of Commons for arbitration of the Alabama Claims in 1868. He entered the government under Lord Russell as Civil Lord of the Admiralty in 1866, a post he held until the government fell the same year, and later served under William Ewart Gladstone as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade from 1868 to 1871, as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from January to March 1871, as Parliamentary Secretary of the Admiralty from 1871 to 1874 and again in 1880, and as First Commissioner of Works from 1881 to 1885. He entered Gladstone's cabinet in November 1884 when he was appointed Postmaster-General. He relinquished the post of First Commissioner of Works in February 1885 but continued as Postmaster General until the Liberals lost power in June 1885.
Eversley lost his seat in parliament at the 1885 general election and consequently did not serve in Gladstone's brief 1886 administration. He was able to return to the House of Commons in April 1886 when he was elected for Bradford Central in a by-election, which constituency he represented until 1895.[4] He once again became First Commissioner of Works and a member of Gladstone's cabinet in 1892. When Lord Rosebery became Prime Minister in 1894 he was appointed President of the Local Government Board, which he remained until the following year. In 1897 he was elected a member of the London County Council as Progressive for the Haggerston Division. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1880[5] and in 1906 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Eversley, of Old Ford in the County of London,[6] a revival of the Eversley title held by his uncle. He made his last speech in the House of Lords in 1913.[7]
Eversley was also a Commissioner to negotiate a Convention on Fisheries with French Government in 1858, a member of Sea Fisheries Commission in 1862, President of the Statistical Society of London between 1878 and 1879 and Chairman of the Royal Commissions on the Loss of Life at Sea in 1885 and on the Agricultural Depression between 1893 and 1896. In 1865 he co-founded the Commons Preservation Society, becoming its first chairman and, in 1905, its president.[8] He was appointed a Bencher of the Inner Temple in 1882.[2]
Lord Eversley married Lady Constance Moreton, daughter of Henry Reynolds-Moreton, 3rd Earl of Ducie, in 1874. They had no children. He died in April 1928, aged 96, when the barony became extinct. Lady Eversley survived him by a year and died in February 1929.[2]
It is interesting that one of his sisters, Maria Louisa Shaw Lefevre, can be identified as the anonymous author of "The Notebooks Of A Spinster Lady, 1878-1903", published by Cassell in 1919. In her notebooks she tells amusing stories of life in the upper classes of society in England at the time, makes candid observations of contemporary people and recounts jokes she heard told. She records that she attended the funeral of her good friend Augustus Hare in 1903. The book's editor, also unnamed, says she died in 1908. Reference to "The Times" lists her in its report on the funeral and the death records confirm she died in 1908.
"The Notebooks Of A Spinster Lady", page 290, regarding her attendance at the funeral, and page 295 where the editor records that she died five years after 1903. The Times, January 28th page 10. "Among those present at the funeral...Miss Shaw Lefevre". First quarter 1908 her death record, East Preston folio 26 page 255.