Villiers

Villiers, CHARLES PELHAM, corn and poor-law reformer, was born January 19, 1802, a younger brother of the fourth Earl of Clarendon (q.v.). He was educated at Haileybury and St John's College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1827. He was returned for Wolverhampton as a Free Trader in 1835, and sat its constant and consistent member for about sixty years, being again returned unopposed as a Liberal Unionist in 1892. He made his first motion in favour of Free Trade in 1838, and thereafter year by year till triumph was won. Chairman of the Select Committee on Public Houses, he sat with cabinet rank as President of the Poor-law Board (1859-66). The Union Chargeability Act (1865) is but one of the many measures of reform due to his powerful advocacy. His jubilee as member for Wolverhampton was celebrated in 1885, and even the honours of the dead were paid to him there still living—a marble statue was unveiled by Earl Granville in 1879. He was still M.P. in 1897, but died 16th January 1898.