| The Right Honourable The Lord Monteagle of Brandon PC FRS |
|
|---|---|
| Chancellor of the Exchequer | |
| In office 18 April 1835 – 26 August 1839 |
|
| Monarch | William IV Victoria |
| Prime Minister | The Viscount Melbourne |
| Preceded by | Sir Robert Peel, Bt |
| Succeeded by | Francis Baring |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 8 February 1790 |
| Died | 17 February 1866 |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Whig |
| Spouse(s) | (1) Lady Theodosia Pery (d. 1839) (2) Marianne Marshall |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon, PC, FRS (8 February 1790-7 February 1866) was a British Whig politician, who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1835 to 1839.
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Spring-Rice was the son of Stephen Edward Rice (d.1831), of Mount Trenchard, Co. Limerick, and Catherine Spring, daughter and heiress of Thomas Spring of Ballycrispin, County Kerry, a descendant of the Spring Baronets.[1] He was a great grandson of Sir Stephen Rice (1637–1715), Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer and a leading Jacobite, and Sir Maurice FitzGerald, 14th Knight of Kerry. Spring-Rice was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and later studied law at Lincoln's Inn, but was not called to the Bar.[2]
He was elected to Parliament for Limerick City in 1820, and then sat for Cambridge from 1832 to 1839. He was Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department under George Canning and Lord Goderich in 1827 and then served as joint Secretary to the Treasury from 1830 to 1834 under Lord Grey. In June 1834 Grey appointed Spring Rice Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, with a seat in the cabinet, a post he retained when Lord Melbourne became Prime Minister in July. The Whig government fell in November 1834, but returned to office under Melbourne already in April the following year. Spring Rice was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, a post he held until 1839. However, he was disappointed in not being elected Speaker of the House of Commons in 1835 and 1838, when the office was vacant. In 1839 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Monteagle of Brandon, in the County of Kerry, a title intended earlier for his ancestor Sir Stephen Rice. Lord Monteagle of Brandon was also Comptroller of the Exchequer from 1835 to 1865. He differed from the government as regards the exchequer control over the treasury, and the abolition of the old exchequer was already determined upon when he died.
Spring Rice was a dogmatic figure, described by Lord Melbourne as "too much given to details and possessed of no broad views".[3]
Lord Monteagle of Brandon was married twice. He married firstly Theodosia, daughter of Edmund Pery, 1st Earl of Limerick, in 1811. They had five sons and three daughters. After his first wife's death in 1839 he married secondly Marianne, daughter of John Marshall, in 1841. Lord Monteagle of Brandon died in February 1866, aged 75. He was succeeded in the barony by his grandson Thomas Spring Rice, the son of his eldest son Hon. Stephen Edmund Spring Rice (1814–1865). Lord Monteagle of Brandon's second son Hon. Thomas William Spring Rice was the father of the diplomat Sir Cecil Spring Rice, British Ambassador to the United States from 1912 to 1918. A monument still stands today in the People's Park in Limerick, in honour of Spring Rice, who was well regarded locally. His statue adorns a tall column at the centre of a public park.
