DEVONSHIRE, SPENCER COMPTON CAVEN DISH, 8TH DUKE OF (1833-19°8), born at Holker Hall on July 23, 1833, was the son of the 7th duke (then earl of Burlington ) and his wife, Lady Blanche Howard (sister of the earl of Car lisle). In 1854 Lord Cavendish, as he then was, took a second class in the mathematical tripos at Trinity college, Cambridge; in 1856 he was attached to the special mission to Russia for the new tsar's accession; and in 1857 he was returned to parliament as Liberal member for North Lancashire. At the opening of the new parliament of 1859 the marquis of Hartington (as he had then become) moved the amendment to the address which overthrew the government of Lord Derby. In 1862 he visited the United States, and in 1863 he became first a lord of the Admiralty, and then under-secretary for war in Lord Palmerston's government, and on the formation of the Russell-Gladstone administration at the death of Lord Palmerston he entered it as war secretary. He retired with his colleagues in July 1866 and used his comparative leisure to visit Germany and to meet Bismarck. On Gladstone's return to power in 1868 he became postmaster-general, an office which he exchanged against his own inclination, in 1871, for that of secretary for Ireland. When Gladstone, after his defeat and resignation in 1874, temporarily withdrew from the leadership of the Liberal Party in Jan. 1875, Lord Hartington reluctantly accepted the position of Liberal leader in the House of Commons, Lord Granville being leader in the Lords. W. E. Forster, who had taken a much more prominent part in public life, was the only' other possible nominee, but he declined to stand. The new leader of the House was a moderate critic of Disraeli's foreign policy in the near East, but emphatically condemned the conduct of Indian affairs which led up to the first Afghan War of 1878. After the Conservative defeat in the general election of 188o, the queen, in strict conformity with constitutional usage (though Gladstone himself thought Granville should have had the prefer ence), sent for him as leader of the opposition, but Hartington declined the request to form a government, in view of Glad stone's position in the party. Hartington joined the new Glad stone government as secretary of State for India, from which office, in Dec. 1882, he passed to the War Office. His administra tion was responsible for the expeditions of Gen. Gordon and Lord Wolseley to Khartoum.
He shared the responsibility for sending Gordon to evacuate the Sudan, but it must be said that he repeatedly warned the cabinet of the urgency of the Wolseley relief expedition, and threatened resignation when a decision was delayed. In June 1885 he resigned along with his colleagues, and in December was elected for the Rossendale division of Lancashire, created by the new Reform Bill. Iminediately afterwards Gladstone's conversion to home rule for Ireland forced on Lord Hartington the great political decision of his life. His refusal to follow his leader in this course inevitably made him the chief of the new Liberal Unionist Party. He moved the first resolution at the famous public meeting at the opera house in the Haymarket (April 14, 1886), when Lord Salisbury also was on the platform. In the House of Commons Hartington moved the rejection of Gladstone's bill on the second reading. During the electoral contest which fol lowed, no election excited more. interest than Lord Hartington's for the Rossendale division, where he was returned by a majority of nearly 1,5oo votes.
In the new parliament he held a position much resembling that which Sir Robert Peel had occupied after his fall from power, the leader of a small, compact party, the standing and ability of whose members were out of all proportion to their numbers, gen erally esteemed and trusted beyond any other man in the country, yet in his own opinion forbidden to think of office. Lord Salis bury's offers to serve under him as prime minister (both after the general election and again in Jan. 1887, when Lord Randolph Churchill resigned) were declined, and Lord Hartington continued to discharge the delicate duties of the leader of a middle party. It was not until 1895, when the differences between Conservatives and Liberal Unionists had become attenuated by changed circum stances, and the habit of acting together, that the duke of Devon shire, as he had become by the death of his father in 1891, entered Lord Salisbury's third ministry as president of the council, an office which carried at that time the responsibility for education. He also presided over the cabinet committee of defence. In 1892 he succeeded his father as chancellor of the University of Cambridge. In that year too he married the widow of the 7th duke of Manchester.
He continued to hold the office of lord president of the council till Oct. 3, 1903, when he resigned on account of differences with Balfour over the latter's attitude towards free trade. As Cham berlain had retired from the cabinet, and the duke had not thought it necessary to join Lord George Hamilton and Ritchie in resign ing a fortnight earlier, the defection was unanticipated, and was sharply criticized by Balfour. But the duke had come to the conclusion that while he himself was substantially a free-trader, Balfour did not mean the same thing by the term. He necessa rily became the leader of the Free Trade Unionists who were neither Balfourites nor Chamberlainites, and his weight was thrown into the scale against any association of Unionism with the con structive policy of tariff reform, which he identified with sheer protection. A struggle at once began within the Liberal Unionist organization between those who followed the duke and those who followed Chamberlain; but the latter were in the majority, and the duke resigned his chairmanship of the Liberal Unionist Asso ciation (May 19o4), and became president of the new organiza tions, the Unionist Free Food league and the Unionist Free Trade club. In the autumn of 19°7 his health gave way, and he win tered in Egypt. He died on his way home at Cannes on March 24, 19o8. He had a firm friendship with the prince of Wales, after wards Edward VII.
There was no issue of his marriage, and his successor as 9th duke was his nephew VICTOR CHRISTIAN CAVENDISH (1868-1938), who had been Liberal Unionist member for West Derbyshire since 1891, and was treasurer of the household (19oo–o3), financial secretary to the Treasury (1903-05), civil lord of the Admiralty (1915-16) and governor-general of Canada (1916-21) ; in 1892 he married a daughter of the marquess of Lansdowne. He was suc ceeded as loth duke by his son, EDWARD WILLIAM SPENCER CAVENDISH.