Fitzroy, Henry 1807-1859, statesman, second son of George Ferdinand, second Baron Southampton, by his second wife, Frances Isabella, second daughter of Lord Robert Seymour, was born 2 May 1807 in Great Stanhope Street, Mayfair, London. He matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford, on 27 April 1826, but afterwards left Oxford and graduated M.A. at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1828, and was returned to parliament for Great Grimsby in 1831 as a conservative. He was elected for Lewes on 21 April 1837, and represented it till death. He spoke frequently upon practical and administrative topics, and in 1845 became a lord of the admiralty in Sir Robert Peel's government. He joined the Peelites and ultimately became a liberal. In Dec. 1852 he returned to office under Lord Aberdeen as under-secretary of the home department, and was largely instrumental in passing the Hackney Carriages (Metropolis) Act and Aggravated Assaults Act of 1853, 16 and 17 Vict. c. 30 and 33, and the County Courts Extension Act Explanation Act of 1854, having been equally active in passing the County Courts Extension Act in 1850, 17 and 18 Vict. c. 94, and 13 and 14 Vict. c. 61. Quitting this office in February 1855, he was elected chairman of committees in March, and in Lord Palmerston's administration of 1859 became chief commissioner of the board of works, without a seat in the cabinet. After a long and painful illness he died at Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton, 22 Dec. 1859. He married, 29 April 1839, Hannah Meyer, second daughter of Baron Nathan Meyer Rothschild, who survived him five years, and had issue Arthur Frederic, who died in 1858, and Caroline Blanche, who married Sir Coutts Lindsay, bart.

Sources:
     Hansard's Parliamentary Debates
     Annual Register, 1859
     Foster's Alumni Oxonienses
     Gent. Mag. 1859.

Contributor: J. A. H. [John Andrew Hamilton]

Published: 1889