184 
ObiiuM'y. 
first acts of his Parliamentary life was to give a cordial support to 
the movement inaugurated by Wilberforce for the abolition of slavery. 
He also supported the measures passed for the improvement of the 
Poor-Law system, Municipal Reform, the introduction of the Penny 
Post, the extension of the Railway system, and, at a later period, 
the abolition of the Corn Laws. Brought, as he was, into contact 
with the leading men of the day, it is not surprising that his co- 
operation was sought in the establishment of the new Agricultural 
Society on a non-political basis. Though his name does not appear 
prominently in the Society’s records, he took an abiding interest in 
its welfare ; and a letter published in 1846 shows him to have been a 
pioneer in the then almost untrodden paths of experimental research. 
Writing on December 19, 1845, to “My dear Pusey,” he recorded 
the results of the second year of an experiment with Spanish phos- 
phorite and other manures, in a letter which the then Editor of the 
Journal thought important enough to publish (see Vol. VI., First 
Series, page 331). 
Spanish phosphorite is a “ raw ” phosphatic material, used then, 
and still, for making superphosphate of lime. 1 Its use in the raw 
and ground state (as tried by Sir Harry Yerney) has now no direct 
importance, and the interest of the experiment is confined to the 
demonstration of the superiority of dissolved to undissolved minerals. 
No one now would think of using practically Spanish phosphate in 
the raw or ground state ; but these points were not known in 1845, 
when Sir Harry experimented. 
Sir Harry’s activity of both mind and body was extraordinary. 
In November, 1892, Dr. Yoelcker and myself paid him a visit at 
Claydon, in connection with some schemes he had in view with regard 
to the sanitary condition of the cottages on his estate, 2 and we were 
charmed, as everyone was, by his old-world courtesy and geniality 
of manner. I remember being astonished at seeing from my bed- 
room window, when dressing in the morning, an active, if somewhat 
bent, figure walking along briskly in the distance, under an avenue 
of trees Sir Harry himself had planted. After breakfast, Sir Harry 
devoted the whole morning to walking round the estate with an old 
this Parliamentary tradition. He was elected Member for Buckingham in the 
first reformed Parliament of 1832, and took his seat in the same Legislative 
Chamber as that in which his predecessor, Sir Ralph, had scribbled notes 
(still preserved at Claydon) of the proceedings when Charles I. attempted to 
arrest Pym, Hampden, Holies, Hazelrigg, and Strode in 1642. In 1835, 1837, 
1857, 1859, 1865, and 1880, Sir Harry again sat for the town. In the Parlia- 
ment of 1847, however, the Bucks farmers in the enlarged borough refused to 
support him, believing that the repeal of the Corn Laws, for which he declared 
he should vote, would ruin them ; he therefore contested and sat for Bedford, 
which had been lost to the Whigs by Lord John Russell in 1 837. In 1886 the 
borough of Buckingham was disfranchised after a life of 340 years, its last 
member being a Verney, as was nearly the first. In 1885, on Sir Harry’s 
retirement from the House, he was made a Privy Councillor by his lifelong 
friend, Mr. Gladstone. 
1 For the composition of Spanish phosphorite, see Journal, Vol. XI. 
(Second Series), 1875, pages 409-12. 
2 For a description of the sanitary improvements in cottages effected by 
Sir Harry Verney, see Journal, Vcl. III. (1892), p. 638 (note). 
