Dudley Long North

He was of the family of British prime minister Lord North, and brother-in-law of Charles Anderson-Pelham, 1st Earl of Yarborough of Appuldurcombe House.

His kinsman Lord North was then still Prime Minister, but due to a speech impediment, Long was discouraged from speaking in the House of Commons.

Already a member of Brooks's, Long joined the Whig Club in 1785, and Fox relied on him as a dinner host to strengthen party unity, and for political counsel.

Yet in 1811 an offer was made by Charles Grey, which Long declined, of a sinecure if the Whigs returned to office, a hope dashed by the desertion of the Prince Regent.

In December that year, on succeeding his elder brother Charles to the family estate of Hurts Hall, he resumed his former surname, thereby becoming Dudley Long North.

He voted for Francis Burdett's critical motion of 1 July 1819, and was a supporter of George Tierney's move to lead the Whigs in the Commons, though he was absent from the last session of that parliament.

A pallbearer at Edmund Burke's funeral, a mourner at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and a patron of the poet George Crabbe, few of Long North's witticisms are preserved, despite his popularity in both literary and political circles; they were for the most part confined to his friends.