Bexley, Lord (Nicholas Vansittart)

was the son of Henry Vansittart, Esq., governor of Bengal. He was born April 29,1766, was educated at Oxford, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1791. He entered Parliament for Hastings in 1796. In 1801 he was sent to Denmark as minister plenipotentiary, and after his return he was appointed secretary of the treasury in Ireland, and in 1805 secretary to the lord lieutenant, and also a member of the Privy Council. He was chancellor of the exchequer under Lord Liverpool until January, 1823, when he was raised to the peerage under the title of Lord Bexley, of Bexley, Kent. Lord Bexley was a constant supporter of many of the great religious institutions of our age. He was a liberal contributor to the Religious Tract Society, and his services to the British and Foreign Bible Society, especially amid its early difficulties, were of preeminent value. On the decease of Lord Teignmouth, February, 1834, he was chosen by the unanimous vote of the committee President of the Bible Society, an office which he held until his death in 1850, giving constant attention to the interests of the institution. A few weeks- before his decease he presented to it a donation of £1000. — Timpson, Bible Triumphs, p. 379.