September 27 1924
The Press Association regrets to state that the illness of Viscount Long of Wraxall terminated last evening, when his Lordship passed away at his Wiltshire seat, Rood Ashton, Trowbridge. He had been in indifferent health for some time, and a most serious illness developed into an attack of pneumonia which proved fatal.
Walter Hume Long was an English squire of long descent. His family were Wiltshire people, and he was born near Bath in 1854. His mother was a daughter of Mr Fitzwilliam Hume-Dick, a Wicklow squire and landlord, who sat at Westminster for the Irish county as a Conservative from 1850 to 1880 – when he was turned out.
Walter H Long was elected MP for Wiltshire in 1880; since that time he represented several constituencies and figured prominently in the affairs of the Tory Party and in public life until he was “raised to the peerage” by Mr [David] Lloyd George three years ago as Viscount Long of Wraxall.
He filled several Cabinet offices, including those of president of the Local Government Board (twice), president of the Board of Agriculture, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Chief Secretary for Ireland (following Mr George Wyndham), and First Lord of the Admiralty.
He is succeeded in the title by his grandson, Walter, son of the late Brigadier Long, who fell in the Great War. Lord Long is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.
In politics he was ultra-Tory. As Chief Secretary for Ireland during part of the year 1905 he hunted with the Meath pack and defended the Coercive practices of the Ulster Tories who really ruled in Ireland at that time.
Walter Long had a long history with Ireland and is best known now for being the main architect of the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which partitioned the island.
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Giving it Up
The Spectator says: “The only way to face the republican menace is to tell the republicans that we have no intention of keeping the Free State in the empire against its will.
“It is a great and high privilege to be part of the British Empire, and the Free State republicans have forfeited the right to that privilege. Therefore we shall be as glad as they when they leave the empire.”
