Edward John Littleton, 1st Baron Hatherton PC, FRS (18 March 17914 May 1863), was a British politician from the extended Littleton/Lyttelton family, of first the Canningite Tories and later the Whigs. He had a long political career, active in each of the Houses of Parliament in turn over a period of forty years. He was closely involved in a number of major reforms, particularly Catholic Emancipation, the Truck Act of 1831, the Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 and the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. Throughout his career he was actively concerned with the Irish question and he was Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1833 and 1834. Hatherton was also a major Staffordshire landowner, farmer and businessman. As heir to two family fortunes, he had large holdings in agricultural and residential property, coal mines, quarries and brick works, mainly concentrated around Penkridge, Cannock and Walsall. Background and education Littleton was born Edward Walhouse, and was educated at Rugby and at Brasenose College, Oxford. In 1812, he took the name of Littleton to inherit the large landed estates of his great-uncle Sir Edward Littleton, 4th and last of the Littleton Baronets, of Teddesley Hall, near Penkridge, Staffordshire. In 1835, he also inherited large mineral and manufacturing interests in Walsall and Cannock from his uncle, Edward Walhouse. Political career Political career, 1812–1833 Littleton also took over his great-uncle's parliamentary seat. From 1812 to 1832, he was Member of Parliament for Staffordshire and then was the MP for the southern division of that county until 1835. He spent most of that time as a Canningite Tory, but moved over to the Whigs after George Canning's death in 1827. In the House of Commons, Littleton was especially prominent as an advocate of Roman Catholic emancipation. In 1825, as a preliminary to a Catholic Relief Bill promoted by Daniel O'Connell, he introduced an Elective Franchise in Ireland Bill. The objective of this was, paradoxically, to raise the property qualification for Irish voters. However, its underlying aim was to end abuse of a distinctively Irish form of freehold, which had to be renewed by payment to the original landlord, and so allowed large landowners to create large numbers of compliant voters. Both the Relief and the Franchise Bills failed. After crossing the floor of the House to join the Whigs in 1827, Littleton voted for the Catholic Emancipation Bill that finally became law in 1829. From this point, the