John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute

Background and personal life

Bute was the son of John, Lord Mount Stuart, and the former Lady Elizabeth McDouall-Crichton. His parents were both from wealthy, aristocratic backgrounds; his father was due to become the Marquess of Bute, with extensive landholdings in Scotland and in South Wales, and his mother was the sole heir to the Crichton estates, with over 63,980 acres (25,890 ha) of land in Scotland. Bute's father died in a riding accident in February 1794, leaving Elizabeth to give birth to Bute's younger brother, Patrick Stuart, later that year.

Initially Bute was brought up at Dumfries House by his mother and grandmother, but following their deaths he passed into the care of his grandfather, the 1st Marquess of Bute, and travelled with him across England and Europe. His family considered him to be clever and he went to study at Christ's College in Cambridge in 1809. Over the next few years he visited the Mediterranean, Scandinavia and Russia, taking a keen interest in land economics. He developed an eye condition during this period and became partially blind, leaving him unable to travel without assistance or to tolerate bright lights, and finding it difficult to read or write.

His maternal grandfather, Lord Dumfries, died in 1803, followed by his paternal grandfather in 1814, with Bute inheriting both sets of estates and adding Crichton to his surname after Lord Dumfries. As a consequence he held many hereditary titles and posts: in addition to being the Marquess of Bute, he was also the Earl of Windsor, Viscount Mountjoy, Baron Mount Stuart, Baron Cardiff, the Earl of Dumfries and Bute, the Viscount of Ayr and Kingarth, Baron Crichton, Lord Crichton of Sanquhar and Cumnock, and Lord Mount Stuart Cumra and Inchmarnock, and a Baronet of Nova Scotia. He was the Keeper of Rothsay Castle, the Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of Glamorgan, the Lord Lieutenant, the hereditary Sheriff and Coroner of Buteshire, and the High Steward of Banbury.

Bute had four major seats, Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute, Dumfries House in Ayrshire, Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire, and Cardiff Castle in South Wales, with his London townhouse, Bute House, on Campden Hill in Kensington. Bute preferred to live in Mount Stuart House; he disliked London and only spent a few weeks in Cardiff Castle each year. Twice each year he would travel from Mount Stuart House through Ayrshire to Edinburgh, down through northern England to London, and on to Cardiff and his South Wales estates.

Landowner and industrialist

Estate management

Bute was determined to develop his different estates and receive the best possible return from them. He was an active, ambitious manager, quick to generate new ideas for the properties, and spent the majority of his time managing his properties . Despite his poor eyesight, he wrote at least six letters to his managers each day. He had a detailed understanding of his various estates and businesses; he attempted to keep up with affairs in Glamorgan, for example, by reading the local Welsh newspapers from his house in Scotland and through exchanging letters with influential local figures. Bute recognised that his land holdings were too extended and disparate to be easily managed and attempted to rationalise them. He attempted to sell his Luton estates in the early 1820s but failed to obtain an adequate price; he successfully sold them in the early 1840s. Luton and Luton Hoo was finally sold in 1845, by then comprising around 3,600 acres (1,500 ha).

Unusually for an aristocrat of the period, Bute owned almost all of his lands fully, as an owner in fee simple, rather than having his rights diluted through arrangements with trustees. When he married in 1818, Bute placed his English and Wales estates into a trustee arrangement for any future children, but this agreement expired with Lady Maria's death in 1842; when he remarried in 1845 a similar trustee agreement was set up, although in this version the Glamorgan estates were administered separately from his other holdings in England and Wales. Bute continued to run his network of estates and estate managers personally, helped by Onesipherus Bruce, a barrister-agent and close friend.

As early as 1815, Bute had his Glamorgan estates fully surveyed, which highlighted that the estates had been neglected for many years and were now in a poor condition. Edward Richards became the senior official in charge of the estates by 1824 and represented Bute on both estate and political affairs across the region. Despite this, Bute retained the final authority over even quite minor issues on the estates, including making decisions on the buttons to be used on local school uniforms or the reuse of a broken flag pole, for example, which could result in considerable delays as letters were sent between South Wales and Scotland. As the complexity of the Glamorgan estates grew, more officials were appointed to help manage the docks, farms and mineral interests, but these all reported separately to Bute, putting increasing pressure on the marquess.

On the Isle of Bute, the marquess expanded his properties, purchasing land in Ascog, Kilmahalmag and Etterick Mill.

Glamorganshire

Bute was closely involved in the developments across Glamorganshire during the first half of the 19th century. The region saw tremendous economic and social changes in a short period. The population almost trebled in the first forty years of the century and industrial outputs soared, with the output of pig iron increasing from 34,000 to 277,000 tons between 1796 and 1830. Industry and mining replaced agriculture as the main sources of work. In driving forward and responding to these changes, Bute transformed his South Wales estate into a major industrial enterprise.

Bute's land holdings in Glamorgan were spread out across the county and he took steps to consolidate them, selling around 1,800 acres (730 ha) of some of the outlying properties in the west and investing heavily in buying 4,600 acres (1,900 ha) of land around Cardiff between 1814 and 1826. The rising prices of land and the costs of the docks brought an end to this expansion. Estimating the profitability of the Glamorgan estates is challenging because of the way that the accounts were drawn up during the period, but estimates suggest that once land purchases and the dock building cost were factored in, the estates cost the marquess much more than they delivered in income. Bute borrowed heavily; he had inherited debts of £62,500, but by the time of his death owed £493,887. Financing and supporting this debt was difficult, particularly during the early 1840s, when credit was hard to come by, and John was forced to juggle lenders and different lines of credit. He believed that ultimately his investments would provide a rich return, and in 1844 noted that he thought "well of the prospects of my income in the distance".

The economic growth across South Wales drove up the demand for new housing for the growing workforce. Bute was not prepared to sell any of his lands for housing, and did not see much profit in building and renting housing himself, but was prepared to lease land in the growing urban areas and mining communities for land development. Initially, he attempted to negotiate 63-year long leases, which would have given his successors additional, early flexibility in how they managed the land, but these proved unpopular so he reverted to offering the more typical 99-year leases. None of the contracts offered by Bute allowed the lessee to buy the freehold or automatically renew the lease at the end of this term, which ultimately resulted in substantial political difficulties for the third and fourth marquesses when there was a storm of complaints in the late 19th and early 20th century. Bute left the style of the early developments up to the lessees, but was concerned by the poor results. Bute then began to approve the designs for new buildings personally, laying out some grand streets in the centre of Cardiff and retaining open areas for eventual use as parks. Very little money was invested in the sewage and drainage systems for his new developments, however, and a damning 1850 inquiry showed that this had resulted in cholera outbreaks across the town.

Cardiff Docks

Between 1822 and 1848 Bute played a central role in the creation of the Cardiff Docks. The idea was first put forward to Bute by one of his staff in 1822, who suggested that, with the right investment, Cardiff could be transformed into a major port for exporting coal and iron. The existing seaport, used by the Glamorganshire Canal, was small and inefficient. The new port would then deliver a direct return to Bute from shipping rates, improve the value of his lands in Cardiff itself and increase the value of the royalties he could charge on his coal fields. Initially Bute opposed plans for docks put forward by the local ironmasters, but then changed his mind and pushed forward with his own scheme shortly afterward.

The first phase was to build a new dock and connecting canal in Cardiff, making the Glamorganshire Canal redundant in the process, at an estimated cost of £66,600, considered to opponents to be a "wild speculation". Parliamentary permission was acquired in 1830, despite opposition from the local canal companies of iron masters. The project proved more complex than originally planned, driving Bute to become irritable and angry with almost all of his associates, but the dock opened successfully in 1839. The costs of building the docks had been far more than anticipated, however. Instead of the original estimate, construction costs had soared to £350,000, reaching £10,000 a month in 1837. Bute had to mortgage his local estates to raise the sums required to finish the project. To make matters worse, when they first opened the docks did not receive the traffic he had expected, particularly from the larger ships; Bute put this down to a coalition of ironmasters and others intent on ruining him.

Bute responded by putting commercial pressure on shipping companies to abandon the Glamorganshire Canal and using his feudal rights to force shippers to move their wharfs to his docks. His efforts paid off and although trade through the docks only came to 8,000 tons in 1839, they then rose quickly, reaching 827,000 tons by 1849. Between 1841 and 1848 the docks brought in a gross income of just under £68,000, a relatively disappointing figure compared to the size of the investment. Successive marquesses would find themselves under huge pressure to continue investing and expanding in the docks and subsequent phases of construction over the coming decades.

Politics

National

Bute was born into the pre-Reform system of government in Britain. The British Parliament was divided into the hereditary House of Lords and the elected House of Commons, but voting systems varied widely across England and in many cases only very small numbers of local people were enfranchised to vote. Some members of the House of Lords, termed "patrons", often controlled these "closed" or "nominated" seats in the Commons, effectively appointing their own candidates. Criticism of the system, led by the Whigs, grew during the first half of Bute's life.

Bute was a member of the House of Lords, able to vote on national affairs, but he had a reputation for not attending unless to vote on acts relating to his estates or business interests. When he did vote, it was usually as a moderate conservative, and Bute himself described himself as a follower of the Duke of Wellington, by then a leading Tory politician. John was in favour of Catholic Emancipation, opposed to slavery, the New Poor Law and the Game Laws. Like Wellington, he was in favour of repealing the Corn Laws. He passionately opposed electoral reform, however, and any attempts to disestablish the Church of England or Scotland. Bute had strong views on the necessity of encouraging the poor to work, and was in favour of removing the Irish poor from the mainland back to Ireland. He was a notoriously poor public speaker.

In addition to his personal role in Parliament, Bute sought to control the votes of members of the House of Commons, primarily to ensure the passage of legislation affecting his business interests. Initially, the Isle of Bute had only 21 voters who were dominated by his private estate, but it only returned a Member of Parliament in alternate elections, and his estates in Luton were too limited to allow him to influence the electoral process there. The best remaining option for Bute was to control the voting in Cardiff, but even here he had to choose his candidate carefully and apply careful financial pressure through his control of leases and rents to ensure their election.

In 1832 the Reform Act was passed by Parliament, widening the electorate across the country. The Isle of Bute's electorate rose to 300 and acquired a permanent Member of Parliament, still controlled by Bute. Cardiff saw a short-term drop in its electorate as a result of the act, and Bute benefited from the granting of the vote to many of his richer agricultural tenants. In the aftermath of the reforms, Bute secretly sponsored the creation of the conservative newspaper the Glamorgan Monmouth and Brecon Gazette and Merthyr Guardian, to increase support across the county, and underwrote its losses for many years.

South Wales

Bute was determined to control the local government around Cardiff, considering it part of his rights and duties as a major landowner and aristocrat. On inheriting his estates, however, he found himself facing a difficult political situation. The Butes' grip on Glamorganshire had been weakened in the late 18th century, and the management of their political interests had been left for many years in the hands of John Wood, a local solicitor, whose family was embroiled in local politics, with their own set of interests. Glamorgan was also politically split between factions in the west and the east of the county, with most of Bute's estates in the eastern half. Bute's residence in the area, Cardiff Castle, was understaffed and regarded as unsuitable as a residence; consequently, he lacked the easy local patronage that would have come with a major, properly functioning establishment.

There were tensions between Bute and the new industrialists around the region, including ironmasters such as John Guest, the master of the Dowlais Ironworks. Bute was a financial competitor or landlord with many of these men, and keen to drive as good a deal as possible in his negotiations with them. He also had political differences, seeing himself as a benevolent feudal lord in South Wales, and perceiving the local iron-masters as arrogant, power-hungry individuals, abusing their economic power towards communities and workers.

Nonetheless, Bute was able to personally appoint the Constable of Cardiff Castle, and the constable by law acted as the effective mayor of Cardiff, ran the town's council and had wide powers when appointing local officials. He inherited the title of Lord-Lieutenant of the county in 1815, giving him the right to recommend the appointments of new magistrates and various other civic posts; potential candidates for these posts were advised to vote for Bute's representatives at elections. In 1825 he became the Colonel of the Royal Glamorgan Light Infantry Militia, and used this authority to instruct the militia to vote for his candidates. Those who publicly voted against Bute faced charitable donations and support being cut off. His later control of the Cardiff Docks also helped to provide patronage and influence voting behaviour.

In 1817, John Wood died in the midst of a financial scandal, and Bute decided to appoint two of his rivals to the posts of Constable and Cardiff's Town Clerk. This would have reaffirmed Bute's power to change the appointments and broken the Wood's family hold on local power, but it provoked a storm of local political wrangling. The Wood family turned on Bute, arguing that he should abandon his claims to control local Welsh affairs from Scotland. Bute replied by trying to crush the Wood family's bank and stacking the town council with his appointees in early 1818. The Woods successfully took legal action, challenging Bute's authority to take these actions, and anti-Bute violence flared that summer, resulting in arrests by Special Constables appointed by Bute. The pro-Bute faction in Cardiff rallied and the Woods were defeated at the Parliamentary elections that year, the results reaffirming Bute's authority over the town council.

Death

Bute died in Cardiff on 18 March 1848, and was buried in Kirtling, alongside Maria, his first wife. His funeral had 31 carriages in attendance and drew large crowds, although his funeral was snubbed by the local ironmasters. The national press gave his death little coverage, but the local Daily Chronicle noted Bute's unusual achievement in building up the industrial base of his South Wales estates, and particularly praised his role in constructing the Cardiff Docks. The Cardiff Docks, whose opening in 1837 had led the press to praise Bute as "the creator of modern Cardiff", continued to transform the city over the rest of the century. They would also form a financial liability to Bute successors, the costs of the continual investment needed to maintain and grow the facilities partially off-setting the huge profits that Bute's son enjoyed from the South Wales coalfields.

A subscription was raised across Glamorgan to pay for a statue to be made of him, which was erected in Cardiff's High Street in 1853, outside the town hall. In 2000 the statue, Cardiff's oldest, was moved to Bute Square, but the location was renamed Callaghan Square in 2002, leading to proposals from local officials that Bute's statue might be better relocated once again, potentially to outside Cardiff Castle.