![Edward Bolton King - 1832](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Edward_Bolton_King_-_1832.jpg)
Edward Bolton King (15 July 1800 – 23 March 1878)
was a British
Whig politician from
Umberslade
Hockley Heath is a large village and civil parish in the Arden area mostly within the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, West Midlands, England, incorporating the hamlet of Nuthurst, with a history dating back to the year 705 AD as a wood owne ...
in
Nuthurst
Nuthurst is a village and civil parish in the Horsham district of West Sussex, England. The north of the parish borders Horsham town, with Nuthurst village south from the border. Within the parish is the estate and largely 19th-century country h ...
,
Warwickshire
Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...
.
Family
King was the son of Edward King,
Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster
The Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster is an office of the Duchy of Lancaster. The vice-chancellor is appointed by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster after consultation with the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. Since 19 ...
, and the grandson of Rev.
James King,
Dean of Raphoe
The Dean of Raphoe is based at the Cathedral Church of St Eunan, Raphoe, County Donegal, Ulster in the Diocese of Derry and Raphoe within the Church of Ireland. The Deanery is currently vacant since January 2021.
List of deans
*1603 John Albr ...
. He was the nephew of Captain
James King, who accompanied
James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
on his
last voyage round the world, the Rt. Rev.
Walker King
Walker King (1751 – 22 February 1827) was an English churchman and man of letters, bishop of Rochester from 1809, and, together with French Laurence, co-editor of the works of Edmund Burke.
Life
King was the son of the Reverend James King of ...
,
Bishop of Rochester
The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury.
The town of Rochester has the bishop's seat, at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was foun ...
and of
John King, Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office, and Pitt's spy-master during the French Revolution. In 1803, he inherited a fortune from his great uncle, Edward Bolton, of Preston, Lancashire and Askham Hall, Westmoreland. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford and Lincoln's Inn.
In 1826, he bought the
Umberslade
Hockley Heath is a large village and civil parish in the Arden area mostly within the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, West Midlands, England, incorporating the hamlet of Nuthurst, with a history dating back to the year 705 AD as a wood owne ...
estate in Warwickshire from
Lady Amherst for £75,000. The house had not been lived in since the death of
the last Lord Archer, and so King had to spend some £13,000 on repairs. In 1834, he rebuilt the ancient chapel at Nuthurst, near
Hockley Heath
Hockley Heath is a large village and civil parish in the Arden area mostly within the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, West Midlands, England, incorporating the hamlet of Nuthurst, with a history dating back to the year 705 AD as a wood owned ...
and also provided a school and land for a church in Hockley Heath itself. In 1846, he leased out Umberslade and moved to the house that his father-in-law had recently rebuilt at
Chadshunt
Chadshunt is a small village and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, England. Chadshunt is located in between the villages of Gaydon (where population can be found), and Kineton
Kineton is a villag ...
. In 1858, he sold the Umberslade estate to George Frederick Muntz, son of the Polish industrialist,
George Muntz
George Frederick Muntz (26 November 1794 – 30 July 1857) was an industrialist from Birmingham, England and a Liberal Party Member of Parliament (MP) for the Birmingham constituency from 1840 until his death.
His father Philip Frederic Mun ...
.
In 1828 King married Georgiana (d. 1858), the younger daughter and eventual heiress of
Robert Knight of Barrells,
Warwickshire
Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...
, by whom he had one surviving son and six daughters. In 1859 he married Louisa Palmer, by whom he had another son and two daughters.
Career
King was
High Sheriff of Warwickshire
This is a list of sheriffs and high sheriffs of the English county of Warwickshire.
The Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the Sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most ...
in 1830,
and at the
1831 general election he was elected
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
(MP) for
Warwick
Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined with Leamington Spa and Whi ...
.
He was re-elected in 1832 and
1835
Events
January–March
* January 7 – anchors off the Chonos Archipelago on her second voyage, with Charles Darwin on board as naturalist.
* January 8 – The United States public debt contracts to zero, for the only time in history.
...
,
but was defeated at the
1837 general election.
After his defeat he became prominent in the Warwickshire Association for the Protection of Agriculture and stood (unsuccessfully) against the Peelite candidate at the
1847 general election. In the
1857 general election, he was returned unopposed as one of the two MPs for
South Warwickshire.
[Craig, page 476] The nomination process took place at the
Shire Hall in Warwick, where King was nominated by Sir Francis Shuckburgh, who described King as "no
Radical
Radical may refer to:
Politics and ideology Politics
*Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change
*Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...
but a Whig Conservative".
In his acceptance speech, King stated that he had pledged himself to be independent of all
political parties
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...
, but would support
Lord Palmerston
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865) was a British statesman who was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. Palmerston dominated British foreign policy during the period ...
(the
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
), who he believed deserved credit for the satisfactory conclusion of the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...
.
He served only two years as MP for South Warwickshire, and did not contest the
1859 general election.
He was latterly Chairman of the South Warwickshire Liberal Association.
King died on 23 March 1878, aged 77.
His will, dated 24 November 1876, made generous provision for his second wife and his children by her, but left most of the rest of his estate
in tail to his only son by his first marriage, Edward Raleigh King.
His estate was valued at less than £80,000.
References
External links
*Walter King - The King Family of Kirkby Malham, Askham, Umberslade & Chadshunt & the Knight Family of Barrells, 2019. Kindle Direct Publishing.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:King, Edward
1800 births
1878 deaths
Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
UK MPs 1831–1832
UK MPs 1832–1835
UK MPs 1835–1837
UK MPs 1857–1859
People from the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull
High Sheriffs of Warwickshire
Sheriffs of Warwickshire