Robert Wilmot-Horton

Sir Robert John Wilmot-Horton, 3rd Baronet, GCH, PC, FRS (21 December 1784 – 31 May 1841) was a British politician, pamphleteer and colonial administrator during the first third of the 19th century. He was Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies between 1821 and 1828 and Governor of Ceylon between 1831 and 1837 but is best remembered for his writings on assisted emigration to the colonies.

Background and education

Born Robert John Wilmot, Wilmot-Horton was the only son of Sir Robert Wilmot, 2nd Baronet, of Osmaston, near Derby (see Wilmot baronets), and his first wife Juliana Elizabeth (née Byron). He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford.^[1]

Political and administrative career

Wilmot-Horton was a Canningite supporter of free trade and Catholic emancipation among the Tories.^[2] He sat as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle-under-Lyme from 1818 until 1830.^[3] He served under the Earl of Liverpool, George Canning and Lord Goderich as Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies from 1821 to 1827 and was sworn of the Privy Council in 1827. He reorganised the Colonial Office, including dividing the Empire into areas with a senior clerk responsible for administering each area.

Wilmot-Horton is best remembered for advocating that poor British and Irish families should be allowed to emigrate to the colonies and be granted land there, and was mainly responsible in securing two parliamentary grants in 1823 and 1825 to fund an experiment where poor Irish families settled in Canada. He managed to establish a parliamentary committee on emigration and served as its chairman between 1826 and 1827. In this position he pushed for a plan where so called paupers gave up their rights to parish maintenance in return for grants of land in the colonies. However, the plans were dropped after Wilmot-Horton left the Colonial Office in 1827.^[1]

In 1831 Wilmot-Horton was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Hanoverian Order by William IV and appointed Governor of Ceylon. In Ceylon he implemented the recommendations of the Colebrooke–Cameron Commission forming Ceylon’s First Legislative Council and Executive Committee; abolished the feudal practice of compulsory labour ; abandoned government’s claims to free service (Rajakariya); recognised the right to private property ; abolished government’s monopoly of the Cinnamon trade, dating to the Dutch period ; started the first newspaper of Ceylon, the Colombo Journal, and the first mail coach in Asia ; reformed the education system, established Ceylon's first public school, the Colombo Academy, which was renamed in 1835 as the Royal College, the only school in the world outside England, to be granted Approval by Queen Victoria to use the word ROYAL in a college name. It was also the only school in Asia which was Accredited by Her Majesty. In 1834 he succeeded his father as third Baronet.

In his absence his plans on assisted emigration were ridiculed as those of an impractical dreamer by a succession of writers on colonial affairs, but Wilmot-Horton continued to write pamphlets advocating and defending his ideas. He returned to Britain in 1837.^[1]

Family

Wilmot-Horton married Anne Beatrix Horton, daughter and co-heiress of Eusebius Horton, of the Catton Hall estate in Derbyshire, in 1806. They had four sons and three daughters. In 1823 he inherited the Catton Hall estate on the death of his father-in-law and pursuant to the latter's will added Horton as a second surname. He died at Sudbrooke Park, Petersham, in May 1841, aged 56, and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, Robert.^[1]

Legacy

Horton Plains was named after Sir Robert in 1834 by Lt William Fisher of the 78th Regiment and Lt. Albert Watson of the 58th Regiment.^[4]

Horton Place in Colombo was named after the Governor.

His memorial is located in St John the Baptist's Church, Croxall.

References

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton