Goulburn, Henry (1784–1856), chief secretary for Ireland, was born 19 March 1784 in London, the eldest of three sons of Munbee Goulburn (1758–1793), a Jamaican estate owner born in the West Indies, and Susannah Goulburn (née Chetwynd) (d. 1818), originally from a Staffordshire aristocratic family. The Goulburn family moved to Prinknash Park in Gloucestershire after 1787, following the birth of Henry Goulburn's younger brothers. Henry was educated at Dr Moore's school, Sunbury, Surrey, and tutored privately before entering Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1801. He graduated without distinction (BA 1805, MA 1808), but it was through the university debating clubs that his interest in politics developed. On coming of age in 1805 he inherited his father's Jamaican estates, and pursued a career in public service, entering parliament as a tory in the general election of 1807 for the borough of Horsham in Surrey. Thereafter he sat for St Germans, Cornwall (1812–18), West Looe, Cornwall (1818–26), Armagh (1826–31, having been invited to stand by Lord John George Beresford (qv), archbishop of Armagh), and Cambridge University (1831–56). From 1816 the Goulburn family's principal residence was Betchworth House, Surrey.
Goulburn was appointed under-secretary at the home office in 1810, where he gained a reputation as a highly effective administrator. Lord Liverpool, prime minister from 1812, appointed him under-secretary for war and colonies in August, shortly after the outbreak of war with the United States. Goulburn was awarded a pension of £1,000 a year for his service to the colonial office, which was increased to £2,000 in 1825.
A firm upholder of the protestant constitution of the United Kingdom, Goulburn was appointed chief secretary for Ireland on 29 December 1821 as a protestant counterweight to the new liberal lord lieutenant, Marquis Wellesley (qv), with whom he had a tense relationship. Goulburn had previously refused the post in 1818 because of financial problems. Taking office at what was a difficult period for the Irish administration, he responded to the Rockite disturbances in the south of Ireland (1821–4) with a mixture of coercive and conciliatory measures. To deal immediately with the violence in the south he reintroduced the Insurrection Act (1822–5) and, in what was a pioneering decision, created a police force for the whole of Ireland with the Constabulary Act (1822). He also attempted to deal with some of the underlying reasons for violence by setting up a programme of public works and by introducing the Tithe Composition Act (1823), designed to diffuse the tensions created by the valuation of crops for tithes. Goulburn was both suspicious and fearful of the growing power of the Catholic Association and its alliance with the catholic clergy, and he guided the Unlawful Societies Act (1825) through parliament, suppressing both the Catholic Association and the Orange Order. He was also responsible for the Vestry Act (1826), which made parishioners of all religions liable for the costs of building and repairing Anglican churches, and the Subletting Act (1826), designed to deter the subdivision of land; these measures were unpopular and the Catholic Association campaigned for the repeal of both. Goulburn left the government (29 April 1827) alongside Robert Peel (qv) and the duke of Wellington (qv) after the pro-catholic George Canning replaced Lord Liverpool as prime minister in 1827.
In 1828 the duke of Wellington appointed Goulburn chancellor of the exchequer in his administration. Goulburn retained a deep interest in Irish affairs, maintaining his opposition to catholic emancipation until the election of Daniel O'Connell (qv) in 1828 forced him to acknowledge that the issue needed to be resolved. As chancellor he provoked a popular campaign in Ireland against his proposals to assimilate British and Irish stamp duties in the 1830 budget, though these were later dropped following the death of George IV.
Goulburn left office after the collapse of the Wellington administration in November 1830. Believing that the whig government's Irish policies would undermine the protestant interest in Ireland, of which he was an advocate in parliament, he opposed reforms like the Church Temporalities Act (1833), and every attempt made by the whigs during the 1830s to appropriate the revenues of the established church for lay purposes. He also argued against the whigs' bill for a reform of Irish municipal corporations, though he did accept its final weakened form (1840). The dominance of the whigs in Westminster during the 1830s was broken by a brief period of tory rule when Goulburn served as home secretary (1834–5) and as a lay member of the ecclesiastical commission (February 1835). He failed in his attempt to become speaker of the house of commons in 1839.
Peel appointed Goulburn chancellor of the exchequer when he returned to government in 1841 and gained his assistance in introducing the major financial reforms of the 1840s. Goulburn was broadly supportive of Peel's Irish policy of conciliation and coercion: the proscription of O'Connell's planned meeting about the repeal of the union at Clontarf in 1843 was succeeded by a number of measures aimed at assuaging moderate catholic opinion, particularly the Charitable Bequests Act (1844), the Queen's Colleges Act (1845), and the increased grant for Maynooth College (1845). The last measure deeply troubled Goulburn, yet his personal loyalty to Peel ensured his quiescence. He also supported Peel's decision to repeal the corn laws (1846) when he realised the scale of the famine affecting Ireland, despite his own personal misgivings about ending protection, and he also made several large grants to fund public works in Ireland. He left office when the government was defeated over the Irish coercion bill in June 1846 and remained connected with the Peelites in parliament.
Goulburn married (20 December 1811) Jane Montagu, third daughter of Matthew Montagu, Goulburn's mentor after the death of his father. They had three sons and one daughter: Harry (1813–43), Edward (1816–87), Frederick (1818–78), and Jane (b. 1820). He died 12 January 1856 at Betchworth House near Dorking after contracting pleurisy. His papers are in the Surrey History Centre, Woking.