Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby

British politician (1775–1851)

The Right Honourable

The Earl of Derby

Portrait by William Derby, c. 1837

Born| (1775-04-21)21 April 1775
Knowsley Hall, Lancashire
Died| 30 June 1851(1851-06-30) (aged 76)
Knowsley Hall, Lancashire
Spouse(s)|

Charlotte Margaret Hornby

(m. 1798; died 1817)​

Issue|

* Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby
* Charlotte Elizabeth Smith-Stanley
* Henry Smith-Stanley

Father| Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby
Mother| Lady Elizabeth Hamilton

Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby (21 April 1775 – 30 June 1851), styled Lord Stanley from 1776 to 1832, and Baron Stanley of Bickerstaffe from 1832–4, was an English politician, peer, landowner, builder, farmer, art collector and naturalist. He was the patron of the writer Edward Lear.

## Origins

[edit]

Edward Smith Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby, Elizabeth Hamilton, and Their Son, Edward Smith Stanley, future 13th Earl, by Angelica Kauffman, circa 1776

He was the eldest child and only son and heir of Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby (1752–1834) by his wife Elizabeth Hamilton, a daughter of James Hamilton, 6th Duke of Hamilton.

## Career

[edit]

He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge.[1] On 10 November 1796 he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire[2] and in the same year he was elected as a Member of Parliament for Preston. He held this seat until 1812 and then represented Lancashire until 1832, when he was ennobled as Baron Stanley of Bickerstaffe, of Bickerstaffe in the County Palatine of Lancaster.

### Military career

[edit]

He was commissioned Colonel of the 1st Royal Lancashire Supplementary Militia on 1 March 1797;[3] this regiment subsequently became the 2nd Royal Lancashire Militia.[4] He was breveted as a colonel in the regular Army with seniority from that date, retaining the rank until his regiment was disembodied,[5] which occurred at the end of 1799.[4] He resigned his commission as colonel on 13 April 1847.

## Naturalist

[edit]

In 1834 he succeeded his father as 13th Earl of Derby and withdrew from politics, instead concentrating on his natural history collection at Knowsley Hall, near Liverpool. He had a large collection of living animals:[6] at his death, there were 1,272 birds and 345 mammals at Knowsley, shipped to England by explorers such as Joseph Burke. From 1828 to 1833 he was President of the Linnean Society. Many of Derby's collections are now housed in Liverpool's World Museum. Several species were named after him, for example the Derbyan parakeet, Psittacula derbiana and an Australian species of parrot named firstly by Nicholas Vigors as Platycercus stanleyii, in 1830 when he was Lord Stanley, and referred to in the vernacular as "The Earl of Derby’s Parrakeet" by the author John Gould in the sixth volume of his magnum opus Birds of Australia. However the latter species was found to have been named previously as Platycercus icterotis, and thus Platycercus stanleyii was found to have been an invalid name due to the pre-existence of a published description for the species, according to "the inviolable laws of precedence in deliberations on biological nomenclature".[7] From the Earl of Derby's Collection, the State Library of NSW purchased six volumes of exquisite Australian natural history drawings dating from the early days of British settlement in NSW and this Library publishes talks and exhibitions of its research on this collection.[8]

He founded in 1851 with his natural history's collection a museum in Liverpool, the Derby Museum, the current World Museum, the oldest of the National Museums Liverpool group.

## Marriage and issue

[edit]

Quartered arms of the 13th Earl of Derby

On 30 June 1798, Smith-Stanley married his cousin Charlotte Margaret Hornby (d.1817), second daughter of Rev. Geoffrey Hornby (1750–1812), of Scale Hall, near Lancaster[9] in Lancashire, High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1774 and a Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire, Colonel of a regiment of Lancashire militia, by his wife Hon. Lucy Smith-Stanley (d.1833), the earl's aunt and a daughter of James Smith-Stanley, Lord Strange (1716–1771).[10] Charlotte's brother was Edmund Hornby (1773–1857) of Dalton Hall, near Burton, Westmorland, a Member of Parliament for Preston, Lancashire, from 1812–1826, who married the earl's sister Lady Charlotte Stanley (d.1805).[11]

By Charlotte Hornby, he had issue:[12]

* Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby (1799–1869), thrice Prime Minister (1852, 1858–9, 1866–8)
* Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Smith-Stanley (11 July 1801 – 15 February 1853), married in 1823 Edward Penrhyn
* Hon. Henry Thomas Smith-Stanley (1803–1875), MP for Preston (1832–7)
* Hon. Emily Lucy Smith-Stanley (2 May – 15 November 1804), died in infancy
* Hon. Louisa Emily Stanley (1 June 1805 – 11 December 1825), married in June 1825 Lt.-Col. Samuel Long
* Lady Eleanor Mary Smith-Stanley (3 May 1807 – 11 September 1887), married in 1835 Rev. Frank George Hopwood, Rector of Winwick, Lancashire
* Colonel Hon. Charles James Fox Stanley (25 April 1808 – 13 October 1884), married in 1836 Frances Augusta, daughter of Gen. Sir Henry Frederick Campbell

He died on 30 June 1851 at his seat, Knowsley Hall.[13]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Stanley, Lord Edward (Smith) (STNY792E)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
2. ^ "No. 13978". The London Gazette. 7 February 1797. p. 133.
3. ^ "No. 13989". The London Gazette. 4 March 1797. p. 228.
4. ^ a b Whalley, Joseph Lawson (1888). History of the old county regiment of the Royal Lancashire Militia. Simpkin, Marshall. pp. 145, 167.
5. ^ "No. 15066". The London Gazette. 29 September 1798. p. 923.
6. ^ Palmer, A. H. (Alfred Herbert) (1895). The life of Joseph Wolf, animal painter. Cornell University Library. London; New York : Longmans, Green.
7. ^ Richter, H. C.; Gould, John (1848). The birds of Australia. Vol. 5\. London: Gould. pp. pl. 29 et seq.
8. ^ State Library of NSW (19 June 2015). "TAL & Dai-ichi Life Derby collection of natural history watercolours, 1790s". Archived from the original on 29 March 2019.
9. ^ "Scale Hall, Lancaster, Lancashire".
10. ^ Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, 15th Edition, ed. Pirie-Gordon, H., London, 1937, p.1155, pedigree of "Hornby of Dalton Hall"
11. ^ Fisher, David, ed. (2009). "Hornby, Edmund (1773–1857), of Dalton Hall, Westmld.". The House of Commons 1820–1832. The History of Parliament Trust.
12. ^ Lodge, Edmund (1901). The Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire as at Present Existing: Arranged and Printed from the Personal Communications of the Nobility. Hurst and Blackett Limited. p. 215. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
13. ^ "Death of the Earl of Derby". Windsor and Eton Express. 5 July 1851. p. 2.

## External links

[edit]

* Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Derby
* Stanley, Edward Smith, thirteenth earl of Derby (formerly Lord Stanley) (1775–1851), politician and naturalist by Clemency Thorne Fisher in Dictionary of National Biography
* "Archival material relating to Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby". UK National Archives.
* The TAL & Dai-ichi Life Derby Collection at the State Library of New South Wales

Parliament of Great Britain

Preceded by

William Cunliffe Shawe
Sir Henry Hoghton, Bt

|  Member of Parliament for Preston
1796–1800
With:  Sir Henry Hoghton, Bt | Parliament of Great Britain abolishe
Parliament of the United Kingdom
New parliament |  Member of Parliament for Preston
1801–1812
With:  Sir Henry Hoghton, Bt 1801–1802
John Horrocks 1802–1804
Samuel Horrocks 1804–1812  | Succeeded by

Edmund Hornby
Samuel Horrocks

Preceded by

Thomas Stanley
John Blackburne

|  Member of Parliament for Lancashire
1812–1832
With:  John Blackburne 1812–1830
John Wilson-Patten 1830–1831
Benjamin Heywood 1831–1832  | Constituency divided
Honorary titles
Vacant

Title last held by

The Duke of Hamilton |  Vice-Admiral of Lancashire
1831–1851  | Vacant
Preceded by

The Earl of Derby

|  Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire
1834–1851  | Succeeded by

The Earl of Sefton

Peerage of England
Preceded by

Edward Smith-Stanley

|  Earl of Derby
1834–1851  | Succeeded by

Edward Smith-Stanley

Peerage of the United Kingdom
New title |  Baron Stanley of Bickerstaffe
1832–1851  | Succeeded by

Edward Smith-Stanley

* v
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Presidents of the Linnean Society of London

1788–1900|

* James Edward Smith (1788–1828)
* Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby (1828–1833)
* Edward St Maur, 11th Duke of Somerset (1833–1836)
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