Sir Emanuel Felix Agar (22 February 1781 – 28 August 1866) was a British soldier and member of parliament.

Early life

Agar was born in London, the son of the art collector

Welbore Ellis Agar Welbore Ellis Agar FRS (1735 – 30 October 1805) was an Anglo-Irish gentleman, senior officer of HM Revenue and Customs, and art collector, who lived most of his life in Mayfair, Westminster. Life Agar was the middle son of Henry Agar of Gowran ...

(1735–1805) and Mary Ann Agar. His father, a brother of

Charles Agar, 1st Earl of Normanton Charles Agar, 1st Earl of Normanton (22 December 1736 – 14 July 1809), was an Anglo-Irish clergyman of the Church of Ireland. He served as Dean of Kilmore, as Bishop of Cloyne, as Archbishop of Cashel, and finally as Archbishop of Dublin from ...

Archbishop of Dublin The Archbishop of Dublin is an archepiscopal title which takes its name after Dublin, Ireland. Since the Reformation, there have been parallel apostolic successions to the title: one in the Catholic Church and the other in the Church of Irelan ...

, was the husband of Gertrude Hotham, and as no second marriage is known he is presumed to have been illegitimate. He had a brother, Welbore Felix Agar, and both were baptized at

St Marylebone Marylebone (usually , also , ) is a district in the West End of London, in the City of Westminster. Oxford Street, Europe's busiest shopping street, forms its southern boundary. An ancient parish and latterly a metropolitan borough, it merge ...

on 20 March 1798, when his brother’s date of birth was stated as 24 October 1779, a year before the death of his father’s wife, and his own as 22 February 1781. Their father was named. In his Will, dated 25 June 1804, Agar’s father leaves his substantial estate to his two sons and describes Agar as “Lieutenant Emanuel Felix Agar of the first Regiment of Life Guards and now living at Hyde Park Barracks”. His father’s art collection was sold in 1806 for some £35,000.Rebecca Lyons, “Selling the collection of Welbore Ellis Agar” in

Susanna Avery-Quash Susanna Mary Avery-Quash (born 1970) is a British art historian, curator, and author. She is senior research curator at the National Gallery, researching its collections and curating 19th-century items in its history collection, and a research fell ...

, Christian Huemer, eds., ''London and the Emergence of a European Art Market, 1780-1820'' (Getty Publications, 6 August 2019)
pp 174–185
/ref> The name of Agar’s father is sometimes given as Thomas Agar.

Career

Following his inheritance from his father, Agar stood unsuccessfully for parliament at

Sudbury Sudbury may refer to: Places Australia * Sudbury Reef, Queensland Canada * Greater Sudbury, Ontario (official name; the city continues to be known simply as Sudbury for most purposes) ** Sudbury (electoral district), one of the city's federal e ...

in 1806. He stood again there in the following year, this time successfully. He entered the House of Commons and represented Sudbury until the

general election of 1812 {{Short description, None The following elections occurred in the year 1812. * 1812 United Kingdom general election North America United States * 1812 Louisiana gubernatorial election * United States House of Representatives elections in New Yor ...

, when he lost his seat. Throughout his time in parliament, Agar was a

Pittite The Tories were a loosely organised political faction and later a political party, in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. They first emerged during the 1679 Exclusion Crisis, when they opposed ...

. Agar continued to serve in the British Army and took part in the

Peninsular War The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was the military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain ...

of 1808 to 1812. He retired as a major in the Life Guards and was knighted as a

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are the ...

on 17 June 1812. He later worked in the department of the Treasurer of the Navy. In 1836, Agar’s brother Welbore Felix Agar of Brent Ely Hall, Suffolk, died and left him his whole property. In 1866 Agar died, aged 85, at

Stratford Place Stratford Place is a small road in London, off Oxford Street, opposite Bond Street underground station. The road is a cul-de-sac. Stratford House Stratford House was built as the London town house of the Stratford family between 1770 and 177 ...

, his wife Margaret having predeceased him in 1863.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Agar, Emanuel 1781 births 1866 deaths British Life Guards officers Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies Knights Bachelor UK MPs 1807–1812