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 June 1867, at the invitation of Salford Borough Council, Charles Villiers gave the inaugural address at the unveiling of a statue, commissioned by public subscription, in memory of Richard Cobden, in Peel Park, Salford. At dinner he held the soundest party doctrines' – Villiers' parliamentary career was consigned to the backbenches. However, Villiers did receive a compensation of sorts for loss of office with the passing of the Political Pensions Act in 1869. In 1870, however, Charles Villiers was invited to chair the Select Committee on Conventual and Monastic Institutions, which arose from a campaign spearheaded by Charles Newdegate, the Tory MP for North Warwickshire, against a background of popular anti-Catholic agitation attendant upon the Vatican Council.
