Vansittart

Vansittart, NICHOLAS, afterwards Lord Bexley, was the son of a governor of Bengal, and descendant of a family originally from Sittart in Jülich. Born in 1766, and called to the bar in 1791, he entered parliament as a Tory in 1796, and after a mission to Denmark held a series of posts in successive ministries till in 1812 he succeeded Mr Perceval as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in 1823 was raised to the peerage and made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1810 he proposed (against Horner) the motion against resuming cash payments to the Bank of England; at the exchequer he left a large surplus. He was president of the Bible Society, and zealous in religious and philanthropic work. He died 8th February 1851.