CHANCELLOR DEFIES HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 87, 24 September 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHANCELLOR DEFIES HOUSE OF COMMONS.

On Saturday, Ju'y 16. 1831, Mr. Long Welleslev, Member of Parliament for Essex, was committed to the Fleet Prison, which then occupied the site of the present Chatham and South Eastern Railway Station, and to which, besides other offenders, were committed those who had been guilty of contempt towards the Court of Chancery, as this gentleman had been. Ihe offence was Mr. Welleslev taking his own daughter from the house of a Miss Long, who had been appointed her guardian, and refusing to surrender her, or even to reveal where she was concealed. The Lord Chancellor (Henry Broughham) wrote to the Speaker ot the House of Commons, informing him of the committal of this member, and on the 19th of that month the Committee c<; Privileges sat in the House of Commons to take ii.to consideration the breach of privilege alleged to have been committed by the arrest of Mr. Welleslev. The Sergeant-at-Arms was directed to make an application for Mr. Welleuley to be set at liberty; but the Lord Chancellor replied: "Mr. Welleslev is my prisoner, and 1 shall not give him up to tiie House of Commons. 1 am quite clear that I am right. The House of Commons may shut up this Court, if it can; but as long as it is open it wi'l maintain its own power and authority. No doubt the House of Commons will ant wisely and constitution illy 011 the question; but. in the meantime, the prisoner must remain in custody." And

Mr. Wellesley felt and found himself 1 obliged to restore his child to the care of the Lord Chancellor; and, consequent. y, on August £O, lie was discharged from the Fleet Prison, in compliance with his own petition. Mr. \\ el-'e-iley was. for 18-1-5, fourth Earl of Mornington, and English Baron of .Maryborough, with estates in Esnex and Hampshire estimated as worth over a million pound* a year, besides personal property, all of which he had wasted, as tar as he could. Because of his very dissipated life, lie was deprived of his l children and their maternal inheritance, which were placed in Chancery. When lie died, in lodgings at Mayer Street, Manchester Square, London, on July 1, 1857. ho had long subsisted upon the bounty of his uncle, the great Duke of Wellington, and as the survivor of his two sons died unmarried on July 25, 1863, the second Duke of Wellington inherited the earldom of Mornington, while the English barony became extinct.