The Right Honourable
The Lord Basing
PC FRS DL
"The safe man". Caricature by Ape published in Vanity Fair in 1874.
President of the Local Government Board
In office
1874–1880
MonarchVictoria
Prime MinisterBenjamin Disraeli
Preceded byJames Stansfeld
Succeeded byJohn George Dodson
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
In office
4 March 1868 – 1 December 1868
Preceded byGeorge Ward Hunt
Succeeded byActon Smee Ayrton
Personal details
Born19 May 1826 (1826-05-19)
London
Died22 October 1894 (1894-10-23) (aged 68)
Hoddington House, Hampshire
NationalityBritish
Political partyConservative
SpouseLydia Birch (d. 1881)
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford

George Limbrey Sclater-Booth, 1st Baron Basing PC, FRS, DL (19 May 1826 – 22 October 1894), known as George Sclater-Booth before 1887, was a British Conservative politician. He served as President of the Local Government Board under Benjamin Disraeli between 1874 and 1880.

Background and education

Born George Sclater, Basing was the son of William Lutley Sclater, of Hoddington House, Hampshire, and Anna Maria, daughter of William Bowyer. His brother was the naturalist Philip Sclater. He was educated at Winchester and Balliol College, Oxford, and was called to the Bar, Inner Temple, in 1851. In 1857 he assumed by Royal licence the additional surname of Booth to fulfil the will of Anna Maria Booth.[1]

Political career

Basing was elected Member of Parliament for North Hampshire in 1857, which constituency he would represent until 1885, when the constituency was divided.[2] He was then returned for Basingstoke, one of the new divisions of his old constituency, for which he sat until being made a peer in 1887.[3] His first position in government was that of Parliamentary Secretary to the Poor Law Board in Lord Derby's third and final ministry, replacing Ralph Anstruther Earle (formerly Disraeli's private secretary), who had resigned over the Reform Bill of 1867. He later served as Financial Secretary to the Treasury in Benjamin Disraeli's short-lived 1868 government. When the Conservatives returned to power in 1874 under Disraeli he was made President of the Local Government Board, which post he held until the fall of the government in 1880. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1874.[4] In May 1874, he proposed an amendment to the Alkali Act 1863 which had aimed to curb muriatic acid gas emissions from factories using the Leblanc Process.[5] Booth's Alkali Act Amendment Bill came into force on 1 March 1875. In 1887, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Basing, of Basing Byflete and of Hoddington, both in the County of Southampton.[6]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1876.[7]

Family

Lord Basing married Lydia Caroline, daughter of George Birch, in 1857. They had four sons and six daughters. She died in July 1881. Lord Basing survived her by thirteen years and died at Hoddington House, Hampshire, in October 1894, aged 68. He was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son, George.[8]

In 1898 his daughter Eleanor Birch Sclater-Booth married Henry Wilson-Fox, who was later a Conservative MP.[9]

References

  1. ↑ Lundy, Darryl. "thepeerage.com George Sclater-Booth, 1st Baron Basing of Basin Byflete and of Hoddington". The Peerage.
  2. ↑ "leighrayment.com House of Commons: Hackney-Harwich". Archived from the original on 20 October 2018. Retrieved 21 July 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  3. ↑ "leighrayment.com House of Commons: Baillieston-Beckenhahm". Archived from the original on 17 November 2013. Retrieved 21 July 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  4. ↑ "No. 24072". The London Gazette. 6 March 1874. p. 1519.
  5. ↑ ALKALI ACT (1863) AMENDMENT BILL. HC Deb 11 May 1874 vol 219 c151
  6. ↑ "No. 25718". The London Gazette. 5 July 1887. p. 3626.
  7. ↑ "Library Archive". Royal Society. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
  8. ↑ Lundy, Darryl. "thepeerage.com George Sclater-Booth, 1st Baron Basing of Basin Byflete and of Hoddington". The Peerage.
  9. ↑ Arthur G. M. Hesilrige, ed. (1918). Debrett's House of Commons and The Judicial Bench 1918. London: Dean and Son. p. 59. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
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