William Harcourt (politician) Attribution William Harcourt (politician) Sir William George Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt, KC (14 October 1827 – 1 October 1904) was a British lawyer, journalist and Liberal statesman. He served as Member of Parliament for various constituencies and held the offices of Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer under William Ewart Gladstone before becoming Leader of the Opposition. A talented speaker in parliament, he was sometimes regarded as aloof and possessing only an intellectual involvement in his causes. He failed to engender much emotional response in the public and became only a reluctant and disillusioned leader of his party. Harcourt
James Vernon on the revolution for the post of private secretary to Lord Shrewsbury. On Shrewsbury's resignation, Vernon served in the same capacity Sir John Trenchard, by whom he was employed in Flanders in the summer of 1692 to furnish reports of the movements of the army to Sir William Dutton Colt, British minister at Celle. In 1693 he was appointed to a commissionership of prizes, which he held until 1705. On 30 October 1695 he was returned to parliament for Penryn, Cornwall, and on 22 July 1698 for Westminster, which seat he continued to hold until the dissolution of 2 July