Visit to co. Rad. and discussions about the proposed County Roads Board, 1-7 Jan. 1845 (pp. 1-4); account of a performance by a hypnotist, 13 Feb. 1845 (pp. 17-18); brief accounts of debates in the House and of political meetings, 27 Feb. - 23 Apr. 1846 (pp. 21-150 passim) and 4 Feb. - 20 May 1847 (pp. 218-69 passim) including his own speeches on the Maynooth grant, 22-3 Jan. 1846 (p. 108), the Railway (Ireland) Bill, 16 Feb. 1847 (pp. 222-3), and on the Cracow Resolutions which is prefaced by caustic remarks on Bentnick and Disraeli's leadership of the Protectionists, 16 Mar. 1847 (pp. 238-41); illness and death of his father in law Lord Stamford and a character sketch of him, 24 Apr. - 7 May 1845 (pp. 36-46); a visit to Havre and Rouen, 25-31 Aug. 1845 (pp. 49-53); visit to co. Rad. to establish the Hereford to Aberystwyth Railway, 22 Sept. - 9 Dec. 1845 (pp. 58-89) and meetings in London relating to the same, 20 Dec. 1843, 20 Feb. 1846 (pp.93, 115); political news relating to the repeal of the Corn Laws, 18-20 Dec. 1845, 4 Jan. 1846 (pp. 92-3, 101); copy of a letter from him to Peel refusing to support the repeal and copy of Peel's reply, 28, 30 Jan. 1846 (pp. 109-12) and meetings of the Protectionists, 22 Feb., 24 Apr. 1846 (pp. 116-18, 151). The diary continues in narrative from 24 Mar. - 3 Apr. 1846 and is concerned mainly with the domestic problems of his wife's niece Minnie Grey. The period 9 May to Nov. 1846 is covered by an incomplete narrative written in Nov. and is arranged thematically and includes brief details of Peel's downfall and a meeting of the Protectionists (pp. 157-8). There are no entries for Nov. and Dec. 1846 and the diary recommences with daily entries from 1 Jan. 1847: these include a dispute about the appointment of a new chairman of the co. Rad. quarter sessions, 3-8 Jan. 1847 (pp. 204-8) which rumbled on into Feb. and Mar. (pp. 217-18, 220-1, 255); accounts of new and regular meetings of the Protectionists at Lord Stanley's to co-ordinate Parliamentary tactics, 19 Feb., 6, 9 Mar., 17 Apr., 8 May, 1847 (pp. 224-5, 235-6, 257, 262); anecdote of Lord Melbourne about the results of the Catholic Emancipation Act, 25 Feb. 1847 (p. 228); reference to Peel changing his whole associations after leaving office, 5 Mar. 1847 (pp. 234-5) and the illness of his nephew George Digby, 17-26 May 1847 (pp. 261-72).