21 Facts About Hugh Childers

Hugh Culling Eardley Childers was a British Liberal statesman of the nineteenth century.

Hugh Childers is perhaps best known for his reform efforts at the Admiralty and the War Office.

Hugh Childers then decided to seek a career in Australia and on 26 October 1850 arrived in Melbourne, Victoria along with his wife Emily Walker.

Hugh Childers joined the government of Victoria and served as Inspector of Denominational schools and immigration agent.

Hugh Childers became auditor-general on 26 October 1852 and was nominated to the Victorian Legislative Council.

Hugh Childers was Collector of Customs from 5 December 1853 to 28 November 1855 and Commissioner of Trade and Customs 28 November 1855 to 25 February 1857.

Hugh Childers was elected to the inaugural Victorian Legislative Assembly for Portland in November 1856, a seat he held until resigning in February 1857.

Hugh Childers strengthened his own position as First Lord by reducing the role of the Board of Admiralty to a purely formal one, making meetings rare and short and confining the Sea Lords rigidly to the administrative functions.

Hugh Childers was responsible for the construction of HMS Captain in defiance of the advice of his professional advisers, the Controller and the Chief Constructor Edward James Reed.

Hugh Childers was, as predicted by Robinson and Reed, insufficiently stable.

Hugh Childers therefore had to bear responsibility for cuts in arms expenditure, a policy that provoked controversy when Britain began fighting; first the Boers in South Africa in 1880 and then the invasion of Egypt in 1882.

Hugh Childers was very unpopular with Horse Guards for the reinforcement and expansion of the Cardwell reforms.

Hugh Childers became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1882, a post he had coveted.

Hugh Childers attempted to resolve a budget shortfall in June 1885 by increasing alcohol duty and income tax.

At the subsequent election in December 1885 Hugh Childers lost his Pontefract seat, but returned as an independent Home Ruler for Edinburgh South.

Hugh Childers then served as Home Secretary in the short-lived ministry of 1886.

Hugh Childers was critical of the financial clauses of the First Home Rule Bill, and their withdrawal was largely due to his threat of resignation.

Hugh Childers retired from parliament in 1892, and his last piece of work was the drafting of a report for the 1894 "Financial Relations Commission" on Irish financial matters, of which he was chairman.

One of their daughters, Emily "Milly" Hugh Childers, was a portrait and landscape painter.

Towards the end of his ministerial career "HCE" Hugh Childers was known for his girth, and so acquired the nickname "Here Comes Everybody", which was later used as a motif in Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.

Hugh Childers is buried on the south side of the central enclosed roundel in Brompton Cemetery, London.