VOTE OF THANKS TO MR. W. LEY. (Hansard, 5 February 1856)

§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

Sir, I rise to propose to the House that which I am sure hon. Members will feel to be not less gratifying to themselves than due to the gentleman to whom I am about to refer. We have just lost the services of an officer of this House, who has fulfilled his duties to this House during the long period of forty-two years,—I mean Mr.William Ley. Mr. Ley belongs to a family well known to this House for the services they have performed. Mr. Ley's uncle was at the table of this House for the space of twenty-five years, viz. from the year 1795 to 1820. His brother was forty-nine years in the service of this House. Mr. William Ley himself has performed similar services for the period, as I have just mentioned, of forty-two years; and he retires from infirmity and age which, in his opinion, no longer qualify him for the performance of his duty. The youngest Member of this House cannot have gone through a single Session without knowing how much Members of this House depend for their information and guidance in the discharge of their duties upon the assistance they derive from the clerks at the table. I am sure that all who are present will agree with me when I state that we have received from those gentlemen the most useful suggestions and the most accurate information. With regard to Mr. William Ley, every one will acknowledge that, throughout the long course of time during which he sat at that table, no one ever put a question to him without receiving a full and complete answer from his varied store of Parliamentary knowledge, or without obtaining from him the most courteous assistance, without any regard to his personal trouble or to the interruption of any occupation in 225 which he happened at the time to be engaged. I am sure the House would feel that there was something wanting on their part if they permitted an officer who had so long and so faithfully performed the duties of his office to retire without marking, by a Resolution, their sense of the services he had rendered to the House, and through the House, to the country. I, therefore, trust, Sir, that the House will unanimously agree to the Motion I am about to place in your hands, and which is— That this House entertains a just and high sense of the distinguished and exemplary manner in which William Ley, Esq., late Clerk-Assistant of this House, uniformly discharged the duties of his situation during his long attendance at the Table of this House.