Edward Horsman
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Edward Horsman (8 February 1807 – 30 November 1876), was a British politician.
He was the son of a well-to-do gentleman of Stirling, Scotland, and was related on his mother's side to the Earl of Stair. He was educated at Rugby School and Cambridge University, and was called to the Scottish bar in 1832, but then took to politics. He was elected to parliament as a Liberal for Cockermouth in 1836, and represented the constituency till 1852, when he was defeated; in 1853 he was returned for Stroud, and sat there till 1868; and from 1869 until death he was member for Liskeard.
He was a junior lord of the treasury in Lord Melbourne's administration for a few months during 1841, and gained notoriety for attacking Lord John Russell's ecclesiastical policy in 1847 and subsequent years. In 1855, under Lord Palmerston, he was made Chief Secretary for Ireland, but resigned in 1857. He gradually took up a position as an independent Liberal, and was well known for his attacks on the Church, and his exposures of various "jobs". His name became principally connected with his influence over Robert Lowe, 1st Viscount Sherbrooke in 1866 at the time of Gladstone's Reform Bill, to which he and Lowe were hostile; and it was in describing the Lowe-Horsman combination that John Bright spoke of the "Cave of Adullam". Horsman died at Biarritz.
| Preceded by: Sir John Young |
Chief Secretary for Ireland 1855–1857 |
Succeeded by: Henry Arthur Herbert |
[edit] Sources
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- This page incorporates information from Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page.
