Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Pell, Albert
PELL, ALBERT (1820–1907), agriculturist, born in Montagu Place, Bloomsbury, London, on 12 March 1820, was eldest of three sons of Sir Albert Pell (1768–1832), serjeant-at-law in 1808, who retired from practice in 1825 in indignation at being passed over by Lord Eldon for judicial promotion, but in 1831 was persuaded by his friend Brougham, when he became lord chancellor, to accept a judgeship of the court of review in bankruptcy; he was at the same time knighted on 7 Dec. (cf. Woolrych's Serjeants-at-Law (1869), ii. 752-71). Pell's mother was Margaret Letitia Matilda (1786-1868), third daughter and co-heiress of Henry Beauchamp St. John, twelfth Lord St. John of Bletsoe.
Brought up at his father's houses at Pinner Hill and in Harley Street, Pell from 1832 to 1838 was at Rugby school under Arnold. Thence he passed in 1840 to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he describes himself as 'idle and unstudious.' He was, however, instrumental in introducing Rugby football to Cambridge. His parentage entitled him to take the honorary degree of M.A. in 1842, after two years' residence. Plans for reading for the bar were abandoned, owing to his liking for a country life. He at first took a farm in the Harrow Vale, twelve miles from London, and after his marriage in 1846 lived near Ely, finally settling for good in the spring of 1848 at Hazelbeach, mid-way between Northampton and Market Harborough, in a house which he rented from his wife's relative Sir Charles Isham. He found his farm at Hazelbeach to be 'dreadfully out of order, foul, wet and exhausted'; but he set to work on its improvement with characteristic energy. He became a regular attendant at the local markets, besides being 'churchwarden, overseer, surveyor of the highways, guardian of the poor, and justice of the peace' (Reminiscences, p. 165). The outbreak of cattle plague in 1865 bestirred him to a vehement campaign in his district in defence of the system of slaughter for stamping out the contagion; and he organised a great meeting of agriculturists in London on the subject. An indirect outcome of this gathering was the establishment of the central chamber of agriculture, of which Pell became in 1866 the first chairman. At a bye-election for South Leicestershire in 1867, Pell, owing to his exertions in exterminating the cattle plague, was chosen as conservative candidate, but was beaten by a small majority. In 1868 he was returned, and he represented the constituency until his retirement in 1885. Though nominally a conservative, he was, in the words of his friend, Mr. James Bryce, 'no more of a party man than his sense of party loyalty required. His political opinions might be described as half tory, half radical. The tory views and the radical views were not mixed to make what used to be called a liberal conservative, but remained distinct, leaving him a tory in some points, a radical in others' (Reminiscences, introd. p. xliv).
Pell was an authority on questions of poor law, of which he had a wide experience. He was guardian for his own parish of Hazelbeach as early as 1853. In 1873 he moved at his own board of guardians (Brixworth) for a committee to inquire into the mode of administration of outdoor relief in that and other unions, and as the outcome of the committee's report out-door relief was practically abolished in the Brixworth union, with remarkable results. In 18f6 he carried an amendment on Lord Sandon's education bill, providing for the abolition of school boards in districts where there were only voluntary schools (H. Paul, Hist. of Modern England, 1905, iii. 413-4). From 1876 to 1889 Pell had a seat as a nominated guardian for St. George's-in-the-East, London, in which parish he had property, and tried to enforce there his views on out-door relief. He failed in his endeavours to induce the House of Commons to consider his proposals (Hansard, ccxxx. 1515). But in 1884 he carried against the government by 208 votes to 197 a motion deprecating 'the postponement of further measures of relief acknowledged to be due to ratepayers in counties and boroughs in respect of local charges imposed on them for national services.' On this occasion he made his longest speech in the house, speaking for an hour and a half (Hansard, cclxxxvi. 1023). Pell was a prominent figure at poor law conferences, and was chairman of the central conference from 1877 to 1898. He was also an active member of the Northamptonshire county council from its establishment in 1889. Indeed, on all subjects connected with county government, social reform, local taxation, and agricultural improvement he was regarded as an authority both in and out of parliament. In June 1879 he and his friend Clare Sewell Read [q. v. Suppl. II] went, as assistant commissioners to the Duke of Richmond's royal commission on agriculture, to America and Canada to study agricultural questions there. Another inquiry which much interested him was that of the royal commission on the City guilds, of which he was appointed a member at the instance of his friend Sir William Harcourt, who said to Pell that 'he would give him something to keep him quiet for a year or two' (Reminiscences, p. 314). He sat also on the royal commissions as to the City parochial charities and the aged poor.
Shortly after his retirement from parliament in 1885 Pell became (30 June 1886) a member of the council of the Royal Agricultural Society, and did excellent work on its 'Journal,' and on its chemical and education committees. He contributed to its 'Journal' two articles on 'The Making of the Land in England' (1887 and 1889) and a biography of Arthur Young (1893), as well as other minor articles and notes. He was a member of the Farmers' Club, which he joined in February 1867, becoming a member of the committee in 1881, and chairman in 1888. He was one of the pioneers of the teaching of agriculture at his old university, and was made hon. LL.D. there when the Royal Agricultural Society met at Cambridge in 1894. In his later years he suffered much from deafness and from his lungs, and wintered at Torquay. There he died on 7 April 1907, and was buried at Hazelbeach.
In 1846 Pell married his cousin, Elizabeth Barbara, daughter of Sir Henry Halford, second baronet (1825-1894), being attired for the occasion 'in puce-coloured kerseymere trousers, straps, and Wellington boots, an embroidered satin waistcoat and a blue dress coat with brass buttons' (Reminiscences, p. 139).
He had no children and on his death a nephew, Albert James Pell, succeeded to the family property at Wiburton Manor, Ely, where there hangs a portrait of Pell, painted in 1886 by Miss S. Stevens.
[Pell's Reminiscences (up to 1885), edited after his death by Thomas Mackay, 1908; article in Poor Law Conferences of 1899–1900, by W. Chance; personal knowledge.]