The Creevey Papers
Thomas Creevey to Elizabeth Ord, 28 February 1822
“Brooks’s, Feby. 28th.
“My benefit went off last
night as well as possible.* The ‘front row’ of course could not
attend, so I went down and occupied it with myself and my books, with Folkestone on one side of me and Bennet on the other. I disported myself for
upwards of an hour with Bankes, Finance
Committees and ‘high and efficient’ public men. . . . Our lads were
in extacies,
* It was a motion to curtail the powers of the
Government under the Civil Offices Pensions Act of 1817. Creevey’s speech occupies nine
pages of Hansard.
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| 1822.] | CREEVEY’S ACTIVITY. | 35 |
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and kept shouting and
cheering me as I went on, with the greatest perseverance. Brougham and Sefton were amongst my bottle holders in the front row, and in
common with all our people complimented me hugely. . . . Petty asked me now Hume came off last night. Apropos to
Hume, never was a villain more compleatly defeated
than Croker,* and so it is admitted on
all hands, so that our Joe is raised again to the highest
pinnacle of fame for his accuracy and arithmetic . . . Here is Grey, publickly damning the newspapers for
reporting my speech so badly, but he has ‘seen enough to satisfy himself
it must have been very good.’”
Henry Bankes (1757-1834)
Of Kingston Lacy; educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was Whig MP
for Corfe Castle (1780-1826).
Henry Grey Bennet (1777-1836)
The son of Charles Bennet, fourth earl of Tankerville; educated at Eton and Peterhouse,
Cambridge, he was a Whig MP for MP for Shrewsbury (1806-07, 1811-26) and a legal
reformer.
William Pleydell- Bouverie, third earl of Radnor (1779-1869)
Son of the second earl (d. 1828); educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, he was Whig MP
for Downton (1801) and Salisbury (1802-28), and an associate of Sir Francis Burdett and
Samuel Whitbread.
Henry Peter Brougham, first baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a founder of the
Edinburgh
Review in which he chastised Byron's
Hours of Idleness; he
defended Queen Caroline in her trial for adultery (1820), established the London University
(1828), and was appointed lord chancellor (1830).
Thomas Creevey (1768-1838)
Whig politician aligned with Charles James Fox and Henry Brougham; he was MP for Thetford
(1802-06, 1807-18) Appleby (1820-26) and Downton (1831-32). He was convicted of libel in
1813.
John Wilson Croker (1780-1857)
Secretary of the Admiralty (1810) and writer for the
Quarterly
Review; he edited an elaborate edition of Boswell's
Life of
Johnson (1831).
Charles Grey, second earl Grey (1764-1845)
Whig statesman and lover of the Duchess of Devonshire; the second son of the first earl
(d. 1807), he was prime minister (1831-34).
Joseph Hume (1777-1855)
After service in India he became a radical MP for Weymouth (1812), Aberdeen (1818-30,
1842-55), Middlesex (1830-37), and Kilkenny (1837-41); he was an associate of John Cam
Hobhouse and a member of the London Greek Committee. Maria Edgeworth: “Don't like him
much; attacks all things and persons, never listens, has no judgment.”
