Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Lopes, Lopes Massey
LOPES, Sir LOPES MASSEY, third baronet (1818–1908), politician and agriculturist, born at Maristow, Devonshire, on 14 June 1818, was eldest son of Sir Ralph Lopes, second baronet, by his wife Susan Gibbs, eldest daughter of Abraham Ludlow of Heywood House, Wiltshire. [For his descent see Lopes, Sir Manasseh Masseh, first baronet.] Henry Charles Lopes, first Baron Ludlow [q. v. Suppl. I], was a younger brother. Educated at Winchester College and at Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1842 and proceeded M.A. in 1845, he adopted a political career, and in 1853 unsuccessfully contested in the conservative interest the borough of Westbury, which his father had represented at intervals for twenty years. Elected for that constituency in 1857, he held it until 1868, when he was invited to contest South Devon against Lord Amberley [see Russell, John, Viscount Amberley]. Winning the seat, he kept it until 1885, when owing to ill-health he retired from parliament.
Lopes joined a group of members, including Mr. Henry Chaplin, Albert Pell [q. v. Suppl. II], and Clare Sewell Read [q. v. Suppl. II], who supported farming interests, and was chairman of the agricultural business committee. In several successive sessions he urged the grievance of the increasing burden of local taxation; and on 16 April 1872 he carried against Gladstone's government, by a majority of 100 (259 votes to 159), a resolution declaring that it was unjust to impose taxation for national objects on real property only, and demanding the transfer to the exchequer in whole or in part of the cost of administering justice, police, and lunatics (Hansard, ccx. cols. 1131–1403; The Reminiscences of Albert Pell, edited by Thomas Mackay, p. 259). Lopes's speech showed mastery of his subject. Relief came to landowners and farmers in the Agricultural Ratings Act, passed by the conservative government in 1879. Lopes was also the author of an amendment to the public health bill of 1873, transferring to the national exchequer the payment of half the salaries of medical officers and inspectors of nuisances. He advocated, but vainly, the division of local rates between owner and occupier.
When Disraeli came into power in 1874 Lopes was appointed civil lord of the admiralty, and retained that office until 1880. He was chairman of a committee which reorganised the admiralty office, and added to the efficiency of the Naval College, Greenwich, by causing the property of the foundation to give a better return. Ill-health compelled him in 1877 to refuse the secretaryship to the treasury in succession to William Henry Smith [q. v.] On his retirement from parliamentary life in 1885 he was sworn of the privy council, but declined a peerage.
Lopes, who had been high sheriff of Devonshire in 1857, continued to make his influence felt in local politics, though his public appearances were not numerous. From 1888 to 1904 he was an alderman of the Devonshire county council, and in the last year he resigned a directorship of the Great Western railway, which he had held for forty years. A liberal supporter of the charitable institutions of Plymouth, he endowed the South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital to the amount of 14,000l., besides other donations. He was also a large subscriber to Church of England extension and endowment. A scientific farmer of much sagacity, he greatly increased the value of his estates at Maristow. On his accession to the property he had to rebuild throughout, owing to the system of long leases which prevailed; he computed that in forty years he spent 150,000l. on improvements. By prize-giving he encouraged the raising of sound stock, and he instituted a pension system for the aged poor.
Lopes died at Maristow on 20 Jan. 1908 after a few days' illness. His portrait by Mr. A. S. Cope, R.A., painted in 1900, is in the committee-room of the South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital, Plymouth. A cartoon portrait by ‘Ape’ appeared in ‘Vanity Fair’ in 1875. He married twice: (1) Bertha (d. 1872), daughter of John Yarde-Buller, first Lord Churston (2) Louisa (d. 27 April 1908), daughter of Sir Robert W. Newman, first baronet, of Mamhead, Devonshire. He had three children by his first wife, Henry Yarde Buller Lopes, fourth and present baronet, and two daughters.
[The Times and Western Morning News, 21 Jan. 1908; Royal Agricultural Society Journal, 1887, xxiii. 23; Albert Pell's Reminiscences, p. 267.]