 He was returned to the House for Derby in 1835 and represented it until June 1847, when he succeeded in the earldom on the death of his father.In 1832, Ponsonby spent some at the British embassy in St Petersburg and a year later, he became précis writer to Lord Palmerston.Lord Bessborough became a government minister when he was appointed Master of the Buckhounds under Lord John Russell in 1848, an office he held until the fall of the administration in 1852.