3-021-658 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Right Hon. George Ward Hunt, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1868. Engraving from a photograph by Maull and Co. 'The political rise of Mr. Ward Hunt, which has culminated in his attaining to the function of Minister of Finance at the early age of forty-three, was begun in 1852, when he was a candidate for the borough of Northampton, but unsuccessfully...Mr. Hunt took a very prominent position by introducing a bill for dealing with the cattle plague...it was freely said that, in the event of the Conservatives coming into power, that he might even aspire to the Home Secretaryship...mode in which he brought forward the sub-budget, rendered necessary by the Abyssinian expedition in November last, was so successful that he has since been often talked of as a coming Chancellor of the Exchequer, a prediction the value of which has been lately proved...In the House it is believed that Mr. Hunt is personally popular. Of late years, in his own county, he has been highly esteemed, and not the less because in earlier life he was the object of much sympathy and interest, owing to the circumstance of two near relatives of his having been murdered by brigands whilst travelling in Italy'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.