604 



OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (WALPOLE XIQUKXA.) 



mists of the time, he announced himself a candi- 

 date for Parliament at Kingston-upon-Hull in 1826 

 with the cry of cheap bread. He was defeated then, 

 and, after being called to the bar in 1827. he filled 

 an office in the Court of Rolls and one under the 

 poor la v when the new Administration was organ- 

 ized in 1832. He was elected to Parliament as a 

 Free Trade Liberal in one of the divisions of Wol- 

 verhampton in 1834, and represented the same con- 

 stituency for sixty-three years. While Cobden and 

 his Anti-Corn-Law Association were carrying on 

 the agitation for the abolition of the corn laws, Mr. 

 Yilliers at the head of the 38 Free Traders in Par- 

 liament pressed in 1838 for a parliamentary in- 

 quiry and led the debates in favor of immediate 

 repeal with terse and vigorous eloquence. He first 

 moved the repeal of the corn laws in 1840, and con- 

 tinued to raise the question year after year until the 

 repeal act was passed in 1846 and the last vestiges 

 of the protectionist system were swept away in 

 1849. Richard Cobden, who entered Parliament in 

 1843, John Bright, and others active in the Anti- 

 Corn-Law League took precedence of the pioneer of 

 the cause in Parliament, but always acknowledged 

 the magnitude of his services. He was transferred 

 in 1852 from the office of examiner of witnesses in 

 the Court of Chancery, which he had held for 

 nearly twenty years, to that of judge advocate 

 general. He brought forward in Parliament the 

 question of postal reform. In 1853 he was elected 

 chairman of the Committee on Public Houses and 

 opposed the principle of vested rights in licenses. 

 From 1859 till 1866 he was president of the Poor 

 Law Board, and in 1865 carried through Parliament 

 a bill making unions chargeable for all the poor 

 within their districts and prohibiting parishes from 

 driving out paupers who came originally from other 

 places in the same union. In 1886 he separated 

 himself from the Gladstonians and was returned as 

 a Liberal Unionist. He declined a peerage in 1885, 

 preferring to remain the " Father of the House of 

 Commons." His " Free Trade Speeches " were pub- 

 lished in 1884. 



Walpole, Spencer, an English statesman, born 

 in September, 1806 ; died in London, May 22, 1898. 

 He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, was called to the bar in 1831, and obtained 

 a successful Chancery practice, becoming a Queen's 

 counsel in 1846. In the same year he was elected 

 to Parliament from Midhurst as a Conservative, 

 and made himself conspicuous as an opponent of 

 the emancipation of the Roman Catholics and the 

 Jews and as an advocate of religious education. He 

 was appointed Home Secretary by Lord Derby in 

 lfC>2. From 1856 till 1882 he represented Cam- 

 bridge University in. Parliament. He accepted the 

 Home Office from Lord Derby again in 1858. but 

 retired after a few months when the Cabinet de- 

 cided to extend the county franchise. He was ap- 

 pointed Home Secretary in Lord Derby's third Ad- 

 ministration, and was obliged to resign when the 

 alternate bluster and weakness that he had shown 

 in dealing with the Reform League in 1867 had re- 

 sulted in the Hyde Park riot. He retained a seat 

 in the Cabinet till the session of 1868, and from that 

 time till he lost his seat in Parliament he scarcely 

 ever raised his voice in the House. 



White, Gleeson, an English littfrntt'itr, born in 

 Christ Church, Hampshire, England, March 5, 1851: 

 died in London. Oct. 19, 1898. He was widely 

 known as one of the later school of art critics and 

 exercised not a little influence for good upon his 

 generation in matters of decoration and allied 

 themes. For several years he was art editor for the 

 London publishing house of George Bell & Son, and 

 he was editor of t he " Kx Libris Series " of books ; of 

 " Bell's Cathedral Series " ( with E. F. Strange), and of 



one or two other series as well. He was the first 

 editor of " The Studio " (1893-'94), and was associate 

 editor of '" The Art Amateur " during his residence 

 in New York city in 1891-'92. Among the various 

 books edited by him are " Ballades and Rondeaus '' 

 (1887) ; " Garde Joyeuse," a collection of American 

 verse (1890) ; arid " Practical Designing " (1893). His 

 original work comprises "Letters to Living Artists," 

 " Letters by Eminent Hands," both of which ap- 

 peared anonymously, the latter being a clever imi- 

 tation of the styles of several contemporary novel- 

 ists; " Salisbury Cathedral " (1896) ; " English I llus- 

 ration in the Sixties " (1897) ; and " Master Paint- 

 ers of Great Britain." his most important work 

 (1897-'98). Mr. White was very popular among 

 London literary workers, none of whom possessed a 

 more generous and kindly nature than he, and all 

 his various undertakings were well and conscien- 

 tiously performed. During his brief residence in 

 New York he made many warm friends. 



Willems, Pierre, a Belgian historian, died at 

 Louvian in March, 1898. He entered the University 

 of Louvain in 1865, lectured on Roman antiquities, 

 on Latin literature and palaeography, and on phil- 

 ology, and published, besides numerous brochures 

 and articles in French and Flemish, a book in 1870 

 treating of Roman antiquities from the point of 

 view of political institutions, one in 1889 on Roman 

 law before the period of Justinian, and in 1885 a 

 learned history of the Roman Senate. 



Winchelsea, Finch-Hatton, Earl of, an English 

 politician, born in Kent in 1851 ; died near Sleaford, 

 Sept. 7, 1898. He was educated at Eton and Balliol 

 College, Oxford, took honors in modern history, and 

 was elected a fellow of Hertford College. He tried 

 to manage the family estate of East well Park until 

 the agricultural depression compelled him to part 

 with it. After an unsuccessful candidacy in 1880 

 at Newark, he was elected to Parliament in 188 1 as 

 representative of an agricultural constituency of 

 Lincolnshire, and sat in the House of Commons 

 until after a long legal contest he established his 

 right to a peerage in 1887 as successor to his half- 

 brother, the eleventh earl. The interest that he had 

 shown in agricultural affairs led him to organize in 

 1894 the National Agricultural Union, representing 

 landlords, tenants, and laborers, which put forth a 

 programme including the reduction of local taxa- 

 tion, the abolition of preferential railroad rates 

 which operated in favor of foreign against British 

 producers, the amendment of the adulteration act 

 and of the agricultural holdings act, old age pen- 

 sions for working men, and increased facilities for 

 enabling working men to obtain small holdings. A 

 majority of the members of Parliament, belonsrin.y 

 to both parties, approved the aims of the ass. 

 tion, most of whose demands have been conceded. 

 The railroad companies were induced to revise tin ir 

 rates for carrying freight, to the advantage of the 

 farmers, after Lord Winchelsea had organized a 

 co-operative company for the direct sale of agri- 

 cultural produce to the consumers in London and 

 other large cities. 



Xiquena, Jos6 Alvarez de Toledo y Acuna. 

 Conde de, a Spanish statesman, died in Madrid in 

 August, 1898. After the restoration of the Spanish 

 monarchy with Alfonso XII, he returned from 

 Naples, where the Duke of Bivona, his father, had 

 taken up his residence, and entered political life, 

 becoming Deputy for Logrono, minister at Brussels 

 Senator from the Canaries, civil governor of Madrid, 

 and twice Minister of Fomento. He was at firs; 

 an adherent of Canovas, but parted from the Con- 

 servatives and became one of the leaders of the 

 Liberal party of Sagasta. As an eloquent speaker 

 and a clever man of action, he always enjoyed great 

 popularity. 



