Adderley, Charles Bowyer
b. 1814-08-02
d. 1905-03-28
After obtaining a pass degree from Christ Church, Oxford in 1835, Adderley spent the next five years developing estates inherited from a great uncle in which he instituted a series of planning and educational reforms.1 On Peel's urging, he entered the House of Commons as a tory in 1841 and held his seat through eight elections.2 In 1849 he participated in the Church of England colony of Canterbury in New Zealand and, with E. G. Wakefield and E. Bulwer-Lytton, formed the Colonial Reform Society which encouraged greater independence in the settler colonies and reduction of imperial financial support.3 As a Conservative he advanced a series of education reform bills. In 1866 Adderley became parliamentary undersecretary of state for the colonies, for which one of his main tasks was to manoeuvre the British North America Bill through the Commons. Part of his argument to forestall British amendments, that … federation has in this case specially been a matter of most delicate treaty and compact between the provinces, became one of legal bases in the ongoing debate concerning the nature of Confederation.4 Raised to the peerage in 1878, he continued to make speeches in the Lords and write letters to the Times on educational and colonial affairs.5
  • 1. H. C. G. Matthew, Adderley, Charles Bowyer, first Baron Norton(1814-1905), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
  • 2. Ibid.
  • 3. Ibid.
  • 4. UK, House of Commons, Hansard, UK Parliament, 28 February 1867, vol. 185, column 1169 ; G. F. G. Stanley, Act or Pact? Another Look at Confederation, Canadian Historical Association: Report of the Annual Meeting, vol. 35, issue 1, 1956, p.15.
  • 5. Matthew, Adderley, Charles Bowyer.
Mentions of this person in the documents
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Lytton, Edward George Earle Bulwer

Wakefield, Edward Gibbon

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New Zealand