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DERBY 



DERBY DAY 



Derby, EARL OF, a title conferred in 1485 on 

 Thomas, second Lord Stanley, two months after 

 Bosworth Field, where he and his family had greatly 

 contributed to Richmond's victory. The Stanleys 

 were descended from Adam de Aldithley, who 

 attended Duke William to England, and whose 



randson, having married the heiress of Thomas 

 tanley, of Stafford, exchanged the manor of Thalk 

 in that county, which he had received as his wife's 

 marriage-portion, for that of Stoneley, in the county 

 of Derby, and afterwards assumed the surname of 

 Stanley. In 1405 Sir John Stanley, who had 

 married the heiress of Lathom, got a grant of the 

 Isle of Man (q.v.), which he and his descendants 

 ruled till 1736. James, seventh Earl of Derby 

 (1606-51), fought on the royalist side throughout 

 the Great Rebellion, and, taken prisoner after 

 Worcester, was beheaded at Bolton ; his countess, 

 Charlotte de la Tremouille, is famous for her 

 heroic defence of Lathom House (1644) arid of the 

 Isle of Man ( 1651 ). 



EDWARD GEOFFREY SMITH STANLEY, fourteenth 

 EARL OF DERBY, was born in 1799, at Knowsley 

 Park, Lancashire. He was educated at Eton and 

 Christ Church, Oxford, where, in 1819, he gained 

 the Latin Verse prize (subject, Syracuse}. He was 

 elected member of parliament for Stockbridge in 

 1820 ; in 1825 he married the second daughter of 

 the first Lord Skelmersdale ; and in 1826 he repre- 

 sented Preston, but lost his seat in 1830, on becom- 

 ing Chief-secretary for Ireland under the adminis- 

 tration of Earl Grey. A seat was soon found for 

 him at Windsor. He took a distinguished part in 

 the debates in favour of the Reform Bill, and 

 signalised his Irish administration by two bold 

 measures one for National Education in Ireland, 

 and another relative to the Irish Church Temporal- 

 ities, which resulted in ten Irish bishoprics being 

 abolished. The grievance of church-rates and first- 

 fruits was also removed, and a graduated tax upon 

 benefices and bishoprics substituted. In 1833 he 

 became Secretary of State for the Colonies, and in 

 the same year carried the bill for emancipating 

 slaves in the West Indies. In 1834, being alarmed 

 by the success of Mr Ward's motion for appropri- 

 ating the surplus of the Irish Church temporalities 

 to secular purposes, Mr Stanley seceded from the 

 Whigs, carrying with him Sir James Graham, the 

 Duke of Richmond, and the Earl of Ripon. In 

 November, upon the dismissal of the Melbourne 

 ministry, he declined to join the Peel administra- 

 tion, and the Stanleyites maintained an independ- 

 ent position for several years. He accepted, how- 

 ever, the colonial seals in 1841, and held them for 

 four years. In 1844 he resigned his seat for North 

 Lancashire, for which he had sat since 1832, and 

 was called to the Upper House in his father's 

 barony of Stanley of BickerstarFe, having for ten 

 years before borne the courtesy title of Lord 

 Stanley, through his father's succession to the 

 earldom of Derby. In December 1845, when Sir 

 Robert Peel determined to repeal the corn laws, he 

 retired from the cabinet. In 1846 he put himself 

 at the head of the Protectionists, who, headed in 

 the Commons by Lord George Bentinck and Mr 

 Disraeli, waged a stout but ineffectual opposition 

 to the free-trade measures of Sir Robert Peel. He 

 Avas now regarded as the leader of the great Con- 

 servative party. 



In 1851, on the death of his father, he suc- 

 ceeded to the earldom. In February 1852, on 

 the resignation of Lord John Russell, he was 

 intrusted with the formation of an administra- 

 tion, which was, however, displaced in Decem- 

 ber following by a hostile vote of the House of 

 Commons condemnatory of Disraeli's budget. 

 On Wellington's death (1852) he was elected 

 Chancellor of the University of Oxford. In Feb- 



ruary 1858, when the Palmerston government 

 resigned on the rejection of the Conspiracy Bill, 

 he again became First Lord of the Treasury. At 

 the meeting of parliament in the following year, 

 his government brought forward a measure of 

 parliamentary reform. A hostile amendment 

 having been moved by Lord John Russell, and 

 carried, he dissolved parliament, and appealed to 

 the country. When the new House of Commons 

 reassembled in June 1859, a vote of want of con- 

 fidence was carried against his government, and he 

 resigned. He returned to power in 1866, and, in 

 conjunction with Disraeli, passed the Reform 

 measure of 1867. In 1868 he resigned the premier- 

 ship in favour of Disraeli. His last speech in 

 parliament was made (1869) in opposition to the 

 disestablishment of the Irish Church. He died 

 at Knowsley Park, Lancashire, October 23, 1869. 

 Lord Derby was styled in his day ' the Rupert of 

 debate,' and stood in the very first rank of parlia- 

 mentary speakers. His power of invective was 

 almost unequalled, and his vehement contentions 

 with O'Connell on the Repeal of the Union did 

 much to diminish the influence of the Irish 

 agitator. Besides being an accomplished scholar, 

 he was a keen sportsman and a popular landlord. 

 But he cared little for office, and more than once 

 injured the fortunes of his party by declining 

 to form a ministry, notably on the fall of Lord 

 Aberdeen in 1855. Lord Derby (who was offered 

 the crown of Greece in 1862-63) published in 1864 

 a blank-verse translation of Homer's Iliad. See 

 Lives by Kebbel (1890), and Saintsbury (1892). 



EDWARD HENRY SMITH STANLEY, fifteenth 

 EARL OF DERBY, E.G., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., 

 eldest son of the above, was born in 1826, and edu- 

 cated at Rugby and Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 where he took firsts in classics and mathematics. 

 In 1848 he was elected member of parliament for 

 King's Lynn, and in 1852 was appointed Under- 

 secretary for Foreign Affairs in his father's first 

 ministry. After declining to join Lord Palmerston 's 

 ministry in 1855, Lord Stanley became Secretary 

 for India in his father's second administration 

 ( 1858-59), and carried the important measure which 

 transferred the government of India from the Com- 

 pany to the crown. He was Foreign Secretary in 

 the third Derby and first Disraeli ministries 

 (1866-68). He succeeded his father in the earU 

 dom in 1869. In 1874 he again became Foreign 

 Secretaiy under Disraeli ; but resigned in March 

 1878, when the majority of the cabinet determined 

 to support the tottering cause of Turkey by calling 

 out the reserves and occupying Cyprus. After 

 holding aloof from politics for several months, he 

 definitely joined the Liberal party in 1880, and was 

 Secretary for the Colonies from 1882 to 1885. In 

 1886 he declined to follow Mr Gladstone on the 

 question of Home Rule for Ireland, allying himself 

 with the Unionist party. Lord Derby, who was 

 Lord Rector of Glasgow University in 1868-71, and 

 of Edinburgh University in 1875-80, died at Knows- 

 ley, 21st April 1893. His Speeches and Addresses, 

 privately printed in 1893, were published with a 

 Memoir by Mr Lecky in 1894. His speeches on 

 economical subjects are profound and convincing. 



Derby Day is the second day, the Wednesday, 

 of the Summer Meeting which takes place at Epsom 

 in Surrey, usually towards the end of May, but 

 sometimes early in June. Upon this day, the most 

 important on the list, and that on which the best 

 horses run, the famous Derby stakes, instituted by 

 the Earl of Derby in 1780, are contended for. 

 When the first Derby was run for, there were only 

 36 subscribers at 50 guineas each ( with 25 guineas 

 forfeit in case of non-starters); and for the first 

 half-century the subscribers never numbered 90 ; 

 but after 1830 there was a rapid increase, and in 



