Thomas Spring Rice

Politician and Irish landowner.

National Gallery Trustee (1835–1866).

No known connections with slavery.

In 1833, he supported the ministerial plan for the abolition of slavery, including a grant of £20m: ‘The method adopted he acknowledged might be unusual, and not altogether constitutional; but the case was sui generis, and was to be taken on its own merits’. (Hansard HC Deb. vol.20 col.292, 2 August 1833 [online], <https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/people/mr-thomas-spring-rice/1833> accessed 6 August 2021.)

ODNB refers to his ‘lifelong attachment to the anti-slavery movement’. (Ellis Archer Wasson, ‘Rice, Thomas Spring, first Baron Monteagle of Brandon (1790–1866)’, in C. Matthew et al. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [online], Oxford 1992 -, <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/26179> accessed 6 August 2021.)

A letter from abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, 25 May 1843, mentioning the example of Nelson Hackett (q.v. Sir Charles Bagot) and urging him to object to the 10th article of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, dealing with the return of enslaved people, is at St John’s College, Cambridge (Papers of Thomas Clarkson, Clarkson/Folder 1-5/Doc 78, <https://www.sjcarchives.org.uk/personal/index.php/autograph-letter-signed-from-thomas-clarkson-to-thomas-spring-rice-lord-monteagle-from-playford> accessed 6 August 2021).

S. Farrell, 'RICE, Thomas Spring (1790-1866), of Mount Trenchard, nr. Foynes, co. Limerick', in History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History, London 1964-, 1820-1832, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/rice-thomas-1790-1866
Checked and found — Item on publisher's website

J. Turner et al. (eds), Grove Art Online, Oxford 1998-, https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/
Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website

UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership, London 2020, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website

E. A. Wasson, 'Rice, Thomas Spring, first Baron Monteagle of Brandon', in C. Matthew et al. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 1992-, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/26179
Checked and found — Item on publisher's website