Henry Sturt, 1st Baron Alington

Henry Gerard Sturt, 1st Baron Alington (16 May 1825 – 17 February 1904), was a British peer, Conservative Party politician, and notorious slum landlord in the East End of London.

Early life He was the son of Henry Sturt, a landowner and politician from Dorset, and his wife, Lady Charlotte Brudenell, daughter of Robert Brudenell, 6th Earl of Cardigan. His father purchased the lordship of Motcombe, Dorset, which his family retained into the 20th century. He was educated at Eton College, and matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1843.

Political career He was elected to Parliament in 1847 for Dorchester, and re-elected in 1852. In 1856, one of the Conservative MPs for Dorset died. Sturt resigned his Dorchester seat and was elected to the vacant Dorset seat in a by-election. He was re-elected in 1857, 1859, 1865, 1868, and 1874. On 8 January 1876, he was created Baron Alington, of Crichel, and thereafter sat in the House of Lords as a Conservative peer.

Racing "Bunny". Caricature by "Spy" (Leslie Ward) published in Vanity Fair in 1876 Sturt became a member of the Jockey Club in 1850. In partnership with Sir Frederick Johnstone, 8th Baronet, he was a successful racehorse owner, in particular with Common in 1891. Frank Chapple who grew up on Pitfield Street, Hoxton, described it as a "slum village".

Lord Alington was one of the private landlords specifically named in relation to the terrible conditions in the East End in the London Poverty Maps compiled by Charles Booth in the 1890s. "Some private landlords were also criticised. Infant mortality in Shoreditch, one investigator recorded, was 22 per 1000, much higher than the London average. Quoting an anonymous interviewee, he drew attention to the 'disgraceful meanness' of Lord Alington, who owned the whole parish and 'drew £20,000 from the neighbourhood'."