42 
SOME OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE SOCIETY. 
tioii, Viscount Milton gained 11,177 votes, including about 9,000 
plumpers, and Mr. Lascelles found only 10,990 supporters. The 
polling lasted for a fortnight, and the cost of bringing the constituents 
to the poll, and then maintaining them, for they were in no hurry 
to return home, was so extravagant, that the election is said to have 
cost each of the noble families of Fitzwilliam and Lascelles no less a 
sum than £100,000. 
Lord Milton's first speech in the House of Commons was in 
favour of religious freedom, a principle which he always advocated, 
although he was himself a consistent churchman, a gTeat promoter of 
the building and supporting of new churches, and he held that the 
church rate was as reasonable a tax as the rate for maintaining the 
poor; and he would have had this rate continued for the maintenance 
of the national churches, which, being open to all, he thought were 
entitled to national support. 
In 1812, 1818, 1820 and 1826, Lord Milton was returned to 
Parliament as a member for Yorkshire without opposition. 
In 1830 he did not again offer himself to the Yorkshire con- 
stituency, in consequence of his father's failing health, but joined 
Lord Althorp in seeking election for Northamptonshire, where there 
was a keen political struggle ; for a Tory squirearchy was abundant 
in that county. The large possessions of Earl Fitzwilliam, connected 
with the Milton estate, near Peterborough, made it important that a 
member of his family should represent this neighbourhood ; but it 
so happened, that prior to the election, Lady Milton became fatally 
ill, and their son, the Hon. W. Wentworth, who was only eighteen 
years old, took the place of his father, who was disabled by this 
domestic affliction ; and he addressed the various constituencies of 
the county with such energy and eloquence that he secured Lord 
Milton's return. Lady Milton died on 1st November, 1830, and his 
lordship continued to represent Northamptonshire until he succeeded 
to the earldom on 8th February, 1833, when his father died at the 
advanced age of 85. 
Although the late Earl was never attached to any ministry, 
during the fifty years that he occupied a conspicuous position in 
political life, twenty-three years of which he was the undisturbed 
