Sir Alfred Pease, 2nd Baronet

Sir Alfred Edward Pease, 2nd Baronet(29 June 1857 – 27 April 1939), was a BritishLiberal Partypolitician who sat in theHouse of Commonsbetween 1885 and 1902 and who became a pioneer settler ofBritish East Africa,nowKenya.

Sir Alfred Pease Bt
Sir Alfred Pease, 2nd Baronet
Member of Parliament forYork
In office 18 December 1885 – 26 July 1892 Serving withFrank Lockwood
Preceded by	Frederick Milner Ralph Creyke
Succeeded by	John Butcher Frank Lockwood
Personal details
Born	(1857-06-29)29 June 1857
Died	27 April 1939(1939-04-27)(aged 81)
Political party	Liberal

Early life

Alfred Pease was a member of the family ofQuakerindustrialists, known in Britain as theDarlington Peases.He was the elder son ofJoseph W. Pease,1st Bt and his wife Mary Fox. His younger brother gained apeerageand becameJoseph Albert Pease, 1st Baron Gainford.

Alfred was educated atGrove House School,Tottenham, and atTrinity College, Cambridge.

Career

He began his career in the family bank, J. & J. W. Pease, of which he later became both a director and partner. He held similar positions in Pease & Partners, whose subsidiary interests embraced collieries, Ironstone mines, limestone quarries, as well as iron manufacturing, fabrication and construction. In the course of his years, he served as managing director, Vice-Chairman (1907) and chairman (1927) of the Owners of the Middlesbrough Estate.

From 1885 until 1892 he was one of the two Liberal Members of Parliament returned forYork,and then from 1897 until 1902 theCleveland divisionof Yorkshire.

During his years in parliament, he served as aJ.P.andAldermanfor theNorth Ridingof Yorkshire, aDeputy LieutenantforCleveland division,as well as being appointed to the Lieutenancy for theCity of LondonHe was also a founder and President of theCleveland Bay Horse Society.

Pease had apparently indicated that he was in declining health before thegeneral election of 1900but was pressed by his local Liberal Association to contest that election. He did so on condition that if his condition made it impossible for him to sit for the whole Parliament he would be allowed to resign, and by September 1902 he referred to ill-health and asked to step down.He did so with the appointment asSteward of the Manor of Northsteadon 21 October 1902.With the failure of the family business interests in 1902, he thus brought his political career to a close and amidst the wreckage sought out new opportunity, which was to take him to South Africa.

Africa

Sir Alfred Pease (centre) in 1909, hunting with former US PresidentTheodore Roosevelt(right) and Roosevelt's sonKermit

Between 1903 and 1905, Pease served as a Resident Magistrate atBarbertonin what was then theTransvaal Colony,but nowMpumalanga,in South Africa, before moving to the opposite end of the continent, to explore theSudan,Somaliland,and the northernSahara.During this time he continued to write of his travels and experiences; a habit that had begun with his "Biskra and Oases of the Zibans" (1893) and followed by "Hunting Reminiscences", (1898). "The Badger", (1898). "Horse Breeding for Farmers", (1902). and "Travels and Sport in Africa", (1902). "Rachel Gurney of the Grove", (1907). "The Diaries of Edward Pease", (1907). "The Book of the Lion", (1914) and "Memoir of Edmund Loder", (1922).

In 1906, he leased more than 6,000 acres (24 km²) of prairie land in theAthiPlains region ofBritish East Africa,southeast of present-dayNairobi.There he founded an ostrich-ranch and hunted the game which was at that time plentiful on Kenya's high plateaus. The Pease property, Kitanga nearMachakoswas situated close to theUganda Railway,and this enabled Sir Alfred to host a number of the famous travellers who hunted during the great age ofsafaris.As a result, he is mentioned in many of the personal accounts of the period.

Theodore Roosevelt,who enjoyed Pease's hospitality in 1909, with his sonKermit,at the start of his world-famousexpedition to Africa,described Sir Alfred as 'a singularly good rider and one of the best game shots I have ever seen.'

In 1909 he became one of the founder members of theShikar Clubformed to promote the activity of hunting and shootingBig Gameanimals. Specimens from Sir Alfred's animal collections can be seen at theDorman Museum.

Pease died aged 81 in 1939, and his eldest son, Edward Pease (1880–1963), succeeded to the baronetcy. When he died, the title passed to his elder son by his third marriage, (Alfred) Vincent Pease (1926–2008), who died without issue. The baronetcy then passed in 2008, to Sir Alfred's youngest son, being the younger son of the third marriage,Joseph Gurney Pease,who became the 5th Baronet and is the current holder of the title.

Family

Pease married three times. His first marriage in 1880, was to his first cousin, Helen Ann Fowler, third child ofSir Robert Fowler, 1st Baronet.The marriage produced two sons and a daughter. His second marriage, in 1912, was to Laure Marianne Sugnet de Montmagny and was childless. His last marriage, in 1922, was to Emily Elizabeth Smith and produced two more sons and two more daughters.

The second son, Captain Christopher York Pease, was killed in the last year ofWorld War I,on 9 May 1918, and was buried in theMazingarbe Communal Cemetery Extension.His gravestone inscription in France reads: "BELOVED THOU DOEST FAITHFULLY WHATSOEVER THOU DOEST".A cousin from what would become theDaryngtonbranch, Lt. Ronald Herbert Pike Pease of theColdstream Guards,had already been killed in 1916. Christopher Pease was serving in theYorkshire Hussars.Captain Pease was older than the norm and was 31 when he died.

Katherine Routledgewas a first cousin of Pease, and she visited him in Kenya in 1904. Later she and her husband led theManaexpedition toEaster Islandfrom 1913 to 1915, during time which she carried out excavations of the island's monuments, and recorded oral history of the island's past. His son-in-law was the cricketerWalter Medlicott.

See also

• List of political families in the United Kingdom

External links

• Alfred E. Pease collection, 1918–1964at library.mcmaster.ca
• Commonwealth War Commission entry for son Christopher
• Hansard1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by Sir Alfred Pease
• Works by Sir Alfred Pease, 2nd BaronetatProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about Sir Alfred Pease, 2nd Baronetat theInternet Archive