Richard Verney, 19th Baron Willoughby de Broke

Baron Willoughby de Broke, circa 1910

"An MFH with a sense of humour". Caricature by Spy published in Vanity Fair in 1905

Richard Greville Verney, 19th Baron Willoughby de Broke (29 March 1869 (London) – 16 December 1923) was a British peer and conservative politician.

Life

Verney was the son of Colonel Henry Verney, 18th Baron Willoughby de Broke and Geraldine Smith-Barry and educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford. He married Marie Frances Lisette Hanbury, daughter of Charles Addington Hanbury, on 2 July 1895. They had one son, John Henry Peyto Verney, who succeeded him as 20th Baron Willoughby de Broke.

The historian George Dangerfield described Verney as "a genial and sporting young peer, whose face bore a pleasing resemblance to the horse. ... He had quite a gift for writing, thought clearly, and was not more than two hundred years behind his time".^[1] He wrote a book on foxhunting called "Hunting the Fox", published in 1921.

Verney represented Rugby, Warwickshire as an MP from 1895–1900.

In 1921, Verney sold the family seat, Compton Verney House, to Joseph Watson (d.1922), a soap manufacturer from Leeds, who was elevated to the peerage in 1922 as 1st Baron Manton of Compton Verney. He retained an estate cottage in Kineton called Fox Cottage, which became his country residence.^[2] On his death on 16 December 1923 his title passed to his son John Henry Peyto Verney.

References

1. George Dangerfield, The Strange Death of Liberal England (Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 47.
2. Debrett's Peerage, 1968, p.1156, Baron Willoughby de Broke.

Publications

• Lord Willoughby de Broke, 'The Tory Tradition', National Review (October, 1911), pp. 201–13.
• Lord Willoughby de Broke, The Passing Years (London: Constable, 1924).
• Richard Greville Verney, Lord Willoughby de Broke. Hunting the Fox (Houghton Mifflin Co, 1921)

Further reading

• Gregory D. Phillips, 'Lord Willoughby de Broke and the Politics of Radical Toryism, 1909-1914', The Journal of British Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 205–224.
• Thomas C. Kennedy, 'Tory radicalism and the home rule crisis, 1910–1914: The case of Lord Willoughby de Broke', Canadian Journal of History, April 2002.
• R. Bearman, 'Compton Verney: A History of the House and its Owners' (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 2000, pp. 157–74).

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Richard Verney
• Compton Verney House website