A letter from Alistair Lexden was published in The Daily Telegraph on 28 April. The son-in-law of the Conservative peer, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, recently joined him in the Lords. Some thought that this may never have happened before. There are in fact many precedents.
SIR - A number of fathers- and sons-in-law were in the Lords together in the days when the House was an entirely hereditary body (Letters, April 24). In the 1880s, the 1st Duke of Abercorn had no fewer than six sons-in-law with him on the Tory red benches.
Other peers linked by marriage were in government at the same time. The Ist Earl of Durham was Lord Privy Seal in the Cabinet of his father-in law, the 2nd Earl Grey, who passed the 1832 Reform Bill. The 2nd Earl of Selborne served his father-in-law, the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, as First Lord of the Admiralty after 1900. Accusations of nepotism did not trouble them.
Lord Lexden
London SW1
