The Strand Magazine, Vol. 05, Issue 26, February 1893: An Illustrated MonthlyVarious
General
The Strand Magazine, Vol. 05, Issue 26, February 1893: An Illustrated Monthly
Various
English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
This tendency to forward movement seems to have been hereditary; Sir
Walter's father, long honourably known as Smyth, going "one step
farther" and assuming the name of Barttelot. Colonel Barttelot did not
loom large in the Parliament of 1868-74, though he was always ready to
do sentry duty on nights when the House was in Committee on the Army
Estimates. It was the Parliament of 1874-80, when the air was full of
rumours of war, when Russia and Turkey clutched each other by the throat
at Plevna, and when the House of Commons, meeting for ordinary business,
was one night startled by news that the Russian Army was at the gates of
Constantinople--it was then Colonel Barttelot's military experience
(chiefly gained in discharge of his duties as Lieutenant-Colonel of the
Second Battalion Sussex Rifle Volunteers) was lavishly placed at the
disposal of the House and the country.
When Disraeli was going out of office he made the Colonel a baronet, a
distinction the more honourable to both since Colonel Barttelot, though
a loyal Conservative, was never a party hack.
Sir Michael Beach sat for East Gloucestershire in 1873, and had not
climbed higher up the Ministerial ladder than the Under Secretaryship of
the Home Department. Another Beach, then as now in the House, was the
member for North Hants. William Wither Bramston Beach is his full style.
Mr. Beach has been in Parliament thirty-six years, having through that
period uninterruptedly represented his native county, Hampshire. That is
a distinction he shares with few members to-day, and to it is added the
privilege of being personally the obscurest man in the Commons. I do not
suppose there are a hundred men in the House to-day who at a full muster
could point out the member for Andover. A close attendance upon
Parliament through twenty years necessarily gives me a pretty intimate
knowledge of members. But I not only do not know Mr. Beach by sight, but
never heard of his existence till, attracted by the study of relics of
the Parliament elected in 1868, I went through the list.
[Illustration: MR. W. W. B. BEACH.]
Another old member still with us is Mr. Michael Biddulph, a partner in
that highly-respectable firm, Cocks, Biddulph, and Co. Twenty years ago
Mr. Biddulph sat as member for his native county of Hereford, ranked as
a Liberal and a reformer, and voted for the Disestablishment of the
Irish Church and other measures forming part of Mr. Gladstone's policy.
But political events with him, as with some others, have moved too
rapidly, and now he, sitting as member for the Ross Division of the
county, votes with the Conservatives.
[Illustration: MR. A. H. BROWN.]
[Illustration: MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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