BARON

See also:

• RALPH (d. 1122)

RALPH

See also:

• ROBERT
• ROBERT (1275—1343)
• ROBERT, HUBERT (1753-1808)
• ROBERT, LOUIS LEOPOLD (1794-1835)

ROBERT

See also:

• WHEELER, JOSEPH (1836-1906)
• WHEELER, WILLIAM ALMON (1819-1887)

WHEELER

See also:

• LINGEN
• BARON RALPH ROBERT WHEELER LINGEN LINGEN (1819-1905)

LINGEN LINGEN (1819-1905)  , English civil servant, was born in February 1819 at Birmingham, where his father, who came of an old Hertfordshire family, with Royalist traditions, was in business . He became a scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1837; won the Ireland (1838) and Hertford (1839) scholarships; and after taking a first-class in Literae Humaniores (1840), was elected a fellow of Balliol (1841) . He subsequently won the Chancellor's Latin Essay (1843) and the Eldon Law scholarship (1846) . After taking his degree in 1840, he became a student of Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1847; but instead of practising as a barrister, he accepted an appointment in the Education Office, and after a short period was chosen in 1849 to succeed Sir J . Kay Shuttle-worth as its secretary or chief permanent official . He retained this position till 1869 . The Education Office of that day had to administer a somewhat chaotic system of government grants to local schools, and Lingen was conspicuous for his fearless discrimination and rigid economy, qualities which characterized his whole career . When Robert Lowe (Lord Sherbrooke) became, as vice-president of the council, his parliamentary chief, Lingen worked congenially with him in producing the Revised Code of 1862 which incorporated " payment by results "; but the education department encountered adverse criticism, and in 1864 the vote of censure in parliament which caused Lowe's resignation, founded (but erroneously) on an alleged " editing " of the school inspectors' reports, was inspired by a certain antagonism to Lingen's as well as to Lowe's methods . Shortly before the introduction of Forster's Education Act of 187o, he was transferred to the post of permanent secretary of the treasury . In this office, which he held till 1885, he proved a most efficient guardian of the public purse, and he was a tower of strength to successive chancellors of the exchequer . It used to be said that the best recommendation for a secretary of the treasury was to be able to say " No " so disagreeably that nobody would court a repetition . Lingen was at all events a most successful resister of importunate claims, and his undoubted talents as a financier were most prominently displayed in the direction of parsimony .

In 1885 he retired . He had been made a C.B. in 1869 and a K.C.B. in 1878, and on his retirement he was created

Baron Lingen . In 1889 he was made one of the first aldermen of the new London County Council, but he resigned in 1892 . He died on the 22nd of July 1905 . He had married in 1852, but left no issue .