Edward John Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley

Edward John Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley (13 November 1802- 16 June 1869), entered the House of Commons as Whig MP for Hindon in 1831 and became member for North Cheshire 1832 to 1841, and 1847 to 1848. He was appointed Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in 1841, Patronage Secretary to the Treasury from 1835 to 1841, Paymaster-General in 1841, and Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1846 to 1852. In 1848, two years before he succeeded to the barony of Stanley, he was created Baron Eddisbury of Winnington. He was President of the Board of Trade from 1855 to 1858, and Postmaster-General from 1860 to 1866. In 1861 he established the Post Office Savings Bank.

His wife, Henrietta Maria (21 December 1807 – 16 February 1895), a daughter of Henry Augustus Dillon-Lee, 13th Viscount Dillon, was a remarkable woman. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia she was a great*4-grand-daughter of King Charles II by his mistress Barbara Villiers. Before her marriage in 1826 she had lived in Florence, and had attended the receptions of the countess of Albany, the widow of Charles Edward, the Young Pretender; and in London she had great influence in social and political circles. When he was patronage secretary her husband was described by Lord Palmerston as joint-whip with Mrs Stanley. Later in life Lady Stanley of Alderley helped to found the Women's Liberal Unionist Association, and she was a strenuous worker for the higher education of women, helping to establish Girton College, Cambridge, the Girls' Public Day School Company, and the Medical College for Women. She died on the 16 February 1895.

They had ten children, of whom the eldest son and heir, a diplomat and Arabist, converted to Islam, the eldest daughter married Augustus Pitt Rivers, their second daughter was the grandmother of Winston Churchill's wife Clementine and great-grandmother of the Mitford sisters, another was the mother of the philosopher Bertrand Russell (a noted agnostic), their youngest son became Roman Catholic Bishop of Emmaus (in partibus), and the youngest daughter, as Rosalind Howard, Countess of Carlisle, became the chatelaine of Castle Howard and a radical temperance campaigner.

Text originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.