[1] From Eton he went to Christ Church, taking his MA in 1802 after an interruption of six months touring northern Europe including Russia but avoiding France, before his father bought him chambers at 4 Stone Buildings, Lincoln’s Inn with a view to him reading for the Bar.
[4] In 1819 he outraged his family by declaring himself an "Independent" at a public County Meeting held at Norwich to petition for an inquiry into the Peterloo massacre.
He was appalled by the gross mishandling of the large public demonstration which had been attended by many of the tenants of his Middleton estate, just north of Manchester.
A crowd of 60,000 had gathered in Manchester calling for political reform and it had been dispersed by cavalry on the instructions of local magistrates, killing 18 people.
He was no less appalled by the government's inept reaction afterwards, which included steps to prevent further public meetings calling for political reform, via the so-called Six Acts.
[8] In August 1821 he succeeded his elder brother in the barony and inherited the Gunton estate in north Norfolk, close to Cromer.
In the autumn of 1822 William Wilberforce, Zachary Macaulay, Dr Stephen Lushington and Suffield met Buxton at Cromer Hall and persuaded him to take over the leadership of the campaign to abolish slavery.
Dr Lushington and I and some others used to go and spend hour after hour at the bar of the House of Lords watching our friend in his arduous conflict; and I find that scarcely any one of the many memorable scenes and incidents of that session has made so strong an impression upon some members of my family as witnessing from the gallery Lord Suffield's unsupported but determined struggle over each clause of the bill as it passed through the Committee of the whole House.
But his voice, single as it often was, could not but be listened to considering that he had for many weeks before that time been in the habit of presenting fifty petitions per day in favour of abolition; and that latterly finding his stores still accumulating, he had increased the number to one hundred, and afterwards to two hundred per day; nor should it be forgotten that one only of these petitions was signed by above 17,000 names, and that many others could boast their thousands and tens of thousands of signatures.
Having earlier taken an interest in the failings of Norwich Gaol, and proposing reforms, in 1816 he co-founded the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline with Elizabeth Fry, Thomas Buxton and Dr Stephen Lushington.
[21] He supported the case for Queen Caroline when the King, George IV, sought to divorce her via the Pains and Penalties Bill 1820.
While strongly opposed to radical calls for revolution, he argued forcibly for constitutional reform: “…A foreigner would say…that the people elect their representatives.
As a result of this speech, John Buckley and other reformers of Middleton he had met after Peterloo wrote to him in a letter dated 11 February 1822, praising his “excellent speech…In stating the theory and exposing the practice of the Constitution, in insisting upon the necessity of a Reformed Parliament, and in your open declaration that at Manchester [i.e. Peterloo], “the people's throats were cut;” your Lordship spoke the language of truth and spoke it well, and we cannot but be persuaded that if your manly example were tenaciously followed upon public occasions by those who ought to be the guardians of the people's rights, an irresistible impression would soon be made upon that mass of corruption, the House of Commons," also,"We thank your Lordship for coming amongst us, as well as for the offers of service which you condescendingly tendered and should your visit be repeated it shall not be our fault if an understanding does not take place, which may be gratifying to your Lordship, and honourable and beneficial to ourselves.
[31] [32] Lord Suffield died at his London home, Vernon House, Park Place, St James's, in July 1835, aged 53, after a fall from his horse on Constitution Hill on 30 June, and was buried at Gunton, Norfolk.