Henry Bouverie William Brand, 1st Viscount Hampden GCB (24 December 1814 – 14 March 1892), speaker of the House of Commons, was the second son of the 21st Baron Dacre, and descended from John Hampden, the patriot, in the female line.
He entered parliament as a Liberal in 1852, and for some time was Chief Whip of his party. He was a Lord of the Treasury during the first Palmerston ministry, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury during the second. In 1872 he was elected speaker, and retained this post till February 1884. It fell to him to deal with the systematic obstruction of the Irish Nationalist Party, and his speakership is memorable for his action on February 2, 1881 in refusing further debate on W.E. Forster's Coercion Bill—a step which led to the formal introduction of the closure into parliamentary procedure. He received the GCB the same year, becoming Sir Henry Brand. On his retirement he was created Viscount Hampden, and he inherited the barony of Dacre in 1890. Lord Hampden died on the 14th of March 1892, being succeeded in the viscountcy by his eldest son Henry, who was governor of New South Wales, 1895–1899. His second son the Hon. Thomas Seymour Brand (1847-1916) was a Rear-Admiral in the Royal Navy while his third son the Hon. Arthur Brand was also a Liberal politician.
References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- This page incorporates information from Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page.
- www.thepeerage.com
