Bentinck Lord George

Bentinck, Lord George, the third son of the fourth Duke of Portland, was born in 1802. Canning, his uncle by marriage, took him as private secretary, and in 1826 he was elected member for King's Lynn. At that time he was nominally a Whig, but like many of the aristocratic members of the party held loosely to old ties. In 1835 he followed Lord Stanley in seceding to the Tories, and like most converts became more thoroughgoing than those of the old faith. He left Sir Robert Peel in 1846 on the repeal of the corn laws, and stood forth as leader of the Protectionists until his sudden death in 1848. He was not a brilliant man, but he possessed some sterling qualities of head and heart. He was, perhaps, a greater loss to the turf than to Parliament, and owes his fame chiefly to Lord Beaconsfield's memoir.