Sir Robert Harry Inglis, 2nd Baronet (12 January 1786–5 May 1855) was an English politician, noted for his staunch high-Tory views.

He was the son of Sir Hugh Inglis, Bt , a minor politician and MP (1802-06). Robert, who succeeded to his father's baronetcy in 1820, was MP for Dundalk 1824-1826, Ripon 1828-1829 and Oxford University 1829-1854.

Inglis was strongly opposed to measures which, in his view, lessened the strength of the Anglican Church. When Robert Grant, MP for Inverness, petitioned for Jewish relief in 1830, Inglis was violently opposed. Inglis alleged that the Jews were an alien people, with no allegiance to England, and that if they were admitted to parliament "within seven years...Parliamentary Reform would be carried." Inglis was joined in his public opposition by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Henry Goulburn, and the Solicitor General and future Lord Chancellor, Edward Burtenshaw Sugden. Although the Jews were not emancipated until 1858, Parliamentary Reform occurred in 1832, just two years later.

In 1845 he broke with Sir Robert Peel and opposed the Maynooth Grant , which would have granted a yearly £26,000 subsidy to the Catholic Maynooth seminary. Other opponents included, oddly enough, John Bright and Benjamin Disraeli.

In 1851, when Lord Stanley attempted to form a protectionist administration, Inglis was offered the presidency of the Board of Control, which he accepted initially, only to withdraw a few days later. He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1854, and died the next year, at the age of 69.

Errata

Disraeli apparently viewed Inglis with contempt, and described him as "a wretched speaker, an offensive voice, no power of expression, yet perpetually recalling and correcting his cumbersome phraseology."

References

• Blake, Robert. Disraeli. New York, 1967.