Edward John Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley PC (13 November 1802 – 16 June 1869), known as The Lord Eddisbury between 1848 and 1850, was a British politician.

Background

Stanley was the son of John Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley of Alderley, and Lady Maria Josepha, daughter of John Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield.

Political career

Stanley entered the House of Commons as Whig Member of Parliament (MP) for Hindon in 1831 and was later member for North Cheshire between 1832 and 1841, and between 1847 and 1848. He served under Lord Melbourne as Patronage Secretary to the Treasury from 1835 to 1841, as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in 1841 and as Paymaster-General in 1841 and under Lord John Russell as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs between 1846 and 1852. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1841[1] and in 1848, two years before he succeeded to the barony of Stanley, he was created Baron Eddisbury, of Winnington in the County Palatine of Chester.[2] He was later President of the Board of Trade under Palmerston from 1855 to 1858 and Postmaster-General under Palmerston and then Russell from 1860 to 1866. In 1861 he established the Post Office Savings Bank.

]Family

Lord Stanley of Alderley married Henrietta Maria (21 December 1807 – 16 February 1895), a daughter of Viscount Dillon, in 1826. Her ancestors had had pronounced Jacobite leanings. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia she was a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of King Charles II by his mistress Barbara Villiers. Her grandmother, née Henrietta-Maria Phipps, was also a descendant of James II of England by Catherine Sedley. Another ancestor was Maréchal de camp Count Arthur Dillon (1670–1733), a supporter of the "Old Pretender".

Before her marriage, she had lived in Florence and had attended the receptions of the Countess of Albany, the widow of Charles Edward, the Young Pretender. In London, she had great influence in social and political circles. When he was Patronage Secretary, her husband was described by Lord Palmerston as joint-whip with Mrs Stanley. Later in life, Lady Stanley of Alderley helped to found the Women's Liberal Unionist Association; and she was a strenuous worker for the higher education of women, helping to establish Girton College, Cambridge, the Girls' Public Day School Trust, and the Medical College for Women.
Lord and Lady Stanley of Alderley had ten children:
Henry Edward John, 3rd Baron Stanley of Alderley (1827–1903)
Hon. Alice Margaret (1828–1910) married Augustus Pitt Rivers
Hon. (Henrietta) Blanche (1830–1921) married David, 10th Earl of Airlie; a grandmother of Winston Churchill's wife, Clementine, and a great-grandmother of the Mitford sisters
Hon. Maude Alethea (1832–1915)
Hon. Cecilia (d. 1839)
Hon. John Constantine (1837–78)
Edward Lyulph Stanley, 4th Baron Stanley of Alderley (1839–1925), married Mary Bell, daughter of Sir Lowthian Bell, Bt
Hon. Algernon Charles (1843–1928), Roman Catholic Bishop of Emmaus (in partibus)
Hon. Katherine Louisa (1844–74) married John Russell, Viscount Amberley; mother of the philosopher Bertrand Russell (a noted agnostic)
Hon. Rosalind Frances (1845–1921), as Rosalind Howard, Countess of Carlisle, became the chatelaine of Castle Howard and a radical temperance campaigner.
Lord Stanley of Alderley died in June 1869, aged 66, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Henry. Lady Stanley of Alderley died in February 1895, aged 87.
In the 1930s his family's letters were published by his descendant Nancy Mitford as:
The Ladies of Alderley: Letters 1841–1850 (Hamish Hamilton, 1938)
The Stanleys of Alderley: Their letters 1851–1865 (Chapman & Hall, 1939)
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