DERBY, EDWARD GEOFFREY SMITR-STANLEY, 14th Earl of, was b. 1799, at Knowsley Lancashire. He was educated at Eton and Christ-church, where, in 1819, lie the Latin verse prize (subject; Syracuse). He was elected member of parliament for Stockbridge in 1820; in 1825, he married the second daughter of the first lord Skelmersdale; and in 1826, he represented Preston, but lost his seat in 1830, on becoming chief secretary for Ireland under the administration of earl Grey. A seat was then found for him at Windsor. He took a distinguished part in the debates in favor of the reform bill, and signalized his Irish administration by two bold measures—one' for national education in Ireland, and another relative to the Irish church temporalities, which resulted in ten Irish bishoprics being abolished. The grievance of church-rates and first-fruits was also removed, and a graduated tax upon benefices and bishoprics substituted. In 1833, he became secretary of state for -the colonies, and in the same year carried the bill for emancipating slaves in the West Indies, and providing a com pensation of twenty millions to the planters. In 1834, being alarmed by the success of Mr. Ward's motion for appropriating the surplus of the Irish church temporalities to secular purposes, lord Stanley seceded front the Grey ministry, carrying with him sir James Graham, the duke of Richmond,, and the earl of Ripon. He ever afterwards adhered to the conservative party, although, in 1834, upon the dismissal of the Mel bourne ministry by William IV., he declined to join the administration of sir Robert Peel. After acting in concert with the opposition for seven years, he accepted the colonial seals in the Peel administration of 1841, and held them for four years. In Sept., 1844, lie resigned his seat for north Lancashire, for which he had sat since 1832, and was called to the upper house' in his father's barony of Stanley of Bicker staffe. In Dec., 1845, when sir Robert Peel determined to repeal the corn laws, he retired from the cabinet. In 1846, lie put himself at the head of the protectionist opposition, which, headed in the commons by lord George Bentinck and Mr. Disraeli,
waged a stout but ineffectual opposition to the free-trade measures 'cif sir Robert Peel. He was now regarded as the leader of the great conservative party. Iu 1851, on the death of his father, he succeeded to the earldom. In Feb., 1852, on the resignation of lord John Russell, he was sent for by the queen, and intrusted with the formation of an administration, which was, however, displaced in Dec. following by a hostile vote of the house of commons condemnatory of the budget of his chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Disraeli. On the death of the duke of Wellington in 1852, lie was elected to the post of chancellor of the tutiversitz of Oxford.. In Feb., 1815S, when the Palmerston gov ernment resigned on the rejection of the conspiracy bill, he again became first lord of the treasury. At the meeting of parliament in the following year, his government brought forward a measure of parliamentary reform. A hostile amendment having been moved by lord John Russell, and carried, he dissolved parliament, and appealed to the country. When the new house of commons reassembled in June, 1859, a vote of want of confidence was carried against his government, and he resigned. He returned to power in 1866, and, in conjunction with Mr. Disraeli, passed the reform measure of 1867. See REFORM. In 1868, he resigned the premiership in favor of Mr. Disraeli. His last speech in parliament was made (1869) in opposition to the disestablishment of the Irish church. He died Oct. 23, 1869, and was succeeded in the earldom by his son, Edward Henry Smith-Stanley (see STANLEY). As a debater, the late earl stood in the very first rank. His power of invective was almost unequaled, and his vehement con tentions with O'Connell on the repeal of the union and the Irish church did much to diminish the influence of the Irish agitator. He was tall, of commanding gesture, and his voice, in elevated passages of declamation, rang with power and effect. D. devoted the leisure of his latter years to translating Homer's Iliad, which was published in two volumes in 1864, in blank verse.