Colonial Despatches

After an elite education at Westminster School, Edinburgh, and Cambridge, Petty-Fitzmaurice was elected to the Commons in 1802 and began his long career as a Whig.1 By 1806 he had become chancellor of the Exchequer and was mooted as a Whig leader in the Commons.2

With the death of a half-brother, he was raised to the Lords as third marquess of Lansdowne in 1810.3

A moderate reformer who campaigned against the slave trade and discriminatory legislation concerning Catholics, dissenters, and Jews, Lansdowne also sought to protect the landed interest in both the Commons and the Lords.4 He held various cabinet positions including serving as lord president of the privy council, which he held during the creation of the colony of Vancouver Island.5

• 1. C. J. Wright, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, third marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• 2. Ibid.
• 3. Ibid.
• 4. Ibid.
• 5. Ibid.