Online Encyclopedia

1ST BARON HENRY FOX HOLLAND (1705–1774)

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Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 586 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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1ST

BARON HENRY FOX HOLLAND (1705–1774)  ,
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English statesman, second son of
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Sir Stephen Fox, was born on the 28th of September 1705 . Inheriting a large share of the riches which his
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father had accumulated, he squandered it soon after attaining his majority, and went to the Continent to escape from his creditors . There he made the acquaintance of a country-woman of fortune, who became his patroness and was so lavish with her purse that, after several years' absence, he was in a position to return home and, in 17J5, to enter parliament as member for Hindon in Wiltshire . He became the favourite pupil and devoted supporter of Sir Robert Walpole, achieving unequalled and unenviable proficiency in the worst
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political arts of his master and model . As a
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speaker he was fluent and self-possessed, imperturbable under attack, audacious in exposition or retort, and able to hold his own against Pitt himself . Thus he made himself a power in the House of
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Commons and an indispensable member of several administrations . He was surveyor-general of
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works from 1737 to 1742, was member for Windsor from 1741 to 1761; lord of the
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treasury in 1743, secretary at war and member of the privy council in 1746, and in 1755 became leader of the House of Commons, secretary of state and a member of the
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cabinet under the duke of New-castle . In 1757, in the rearrangements of the government, Fox was ultimately excluded from the cabinet, and given the
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post of paymaster of the forces . During the war, which Pitt conducted with extraordinary vigour, and in which the nation was intoxicated with glory, Fox devoted himself mainly to accumulating a vast fortune . In 1762 he again accepted the leadership of the House, with a seat in the cabinet, under the
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earl of Bute, and exercised his skill in cajolery and corruption to induce the House of Commons to approve of the treaty of Paris of 1763; as a recompense, he was raised to the House of Lords with the title of Baron Holland of Foxley, Wiltshire, on the 16th of
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April 1763 . In 1765 he was forced to resign the paymaster generalship, and four years later a petition of the
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livery of the city of
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London against the ministers referred to him as " the public defaulter of unaccounted millions." The proceedings brought against him in the court of
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exchequer were stayed by a royal warrant; and in a statement published by him he proved that in the delays in making up the accounts of his office he had transgressed neither the law nor the custom of the time . From the
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interest on the outstanding balances he had, none the less, amassed a princely fortune .

He strove, but in vain, to obtain promotion to the dignity of an earl, a dignity upon which he had set his

heart, and he died at Holland House,
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Kensington, on the 1st of
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July 1774, a sorely disappointed man, with a reputation for cunning and unscrupulousness which cannot easily be matched, and with an unpopularity which justifies the conclusion that he was the most thoroughly hated statesman of his day . Lord Holland married in 1744 Lady Georgina Caroline Lennox, daughter of the duke of Richmond, who was created Baroness Holland, of Holland,
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Lincolnshire, in 1762 . There were four sons of the
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marriage: Stephen, 2nd Lord Holland (d . 1774); Henry (d. an infant); Charles James (the celebrated statesman); and Henry
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Edward (1755-1811), soldier and diplomatist .

End of Article: 1ST BARON HENRY FOX HOLLAND (1705–1774)
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