ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the first biographical study of Charles Pelham Villiers, whose long UK parliamentary career spanned numerous government administrations under twenty different prime ministers. In July 1859 Lord Palmerston offered Charles Villiers the post of President of Poor Law Board in the new government, together with a seat in Cabinet. According to convention, Villiers' appointment as a Cabinet Minister necessitated a by-election in Wolverhampton, and at a meeting held on 4 July at Corn Exchange, Villiers was unanimously re-elected, unopposed, as the Member for Wolverhampton. Charles Villiers' first act as President of the Poor Law Board was to appoint Thomas Thornely's nephew, John Thornely, a graduate of London University and a barrister in the Middle Temple, as his Private Secretary. Peter Wood has argued that Poor Law Board, which was not as yet a permanent department, was 'pragmatic and rather colourless … a government department of lowly status which was unlikely to attract the appointment of an ambitious politician'.
