Editing Lord Allendale

Lord Allendale was [[William Laurence]]'s father and the eleventh Earl of Allendale, an earldom created in 1529.  His seat was at [[Wollaton Hall]] in Nottinghamshire.   

Laurence was his third son, and Lord Allendale wanted him to go into the Church, as his middle son had.  Laurence had to run away before Lord Allendale allowed him to join the Navy, and his father never quite approved of that career. When Laurence harnessed [[Temeraire]], Lord Allendale approved even less. He never went so far as to disown Laurence, but he did ask his son not to come to their home again. At first, when Laurence wrote to his mother, [[Lady Allendale]], he had to conceal his correspondence.  After the [[Battle of Dover]], when Laurence became a hero, Lord Allendale allowed him to write his mother openly. However, he never went so far as to write his son himself.  

The two of them were very different. The one thing they did agree on was the subject of slavery. Lord Allendale was one of [[William Wilberforce]]'s political allies and argued for abolition in the House of Lords. (Another one of his political allies was [[Lord Barham]], who had the unpleasant task of attempting to separate Laurence from Temeraire in late 1805.)  Because of this shared conviction, Lord Allendale was grudgingly willing to bring Wilberforce to meet Laurence at the [[London covert]] in early 1807.  This meeting led to the soiree arranged by Wilberforce and Temeraire. 

 

 

By the time of Napoleon's invasion of Britain in late 1807, Lord Allendale had become so ill that his oldest son, [[George Laurence]], had to take over on the management of the estate in Nottinghamshire.  For this reason, Laurence was not allowed to see his father on the two occasions when he and other troops passed through Nottinghamshire.  There was some doubt as to whether or not Lord Allendale would last another year. He eventually passes away around 1811, when Laurence is in Russia.