Paul Feilde (1711–1783) was a British lawyer and politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

from 1770 to 1780. Feilde was the fourth son of Edmund Feilde of Stanstead Abbots, Hertfordshire and his wife Martha Paul, daughter of James Paul of Braywick, Berkshire, and was baptised on 6 October 1711. He was educated at

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

in 1722 and was admitted at Lincoln's Inn in 1724. In 1737 he was called to the bar and he was a London magistrate and a practising barrister until he succeeded to the family estates on the death of the last of his brothers in 1762. Also in 1762, he became Recorder of Hertford.'Parishes: Roydon', in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 8, ed. W R Powell, Beryl A Board, Nancy Briggs, J L Fisher, Vanessa A Harding, Joan Hasler, Norma Knight and Margaret Parsons (London, 1983), pp. 227-240. British History Online {accessed 26 October 2017)
/ref> Feilde's great-grandfather Edmund Feilde had represented Hertford under Charles II and his father's cousin

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had been MP for Hertfordshire from 1761 to 1768. Feilde himself was returned as

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 o ...

for Hertford at a contested by-election on 15 January 1770, probably with the support of the corporation and Dissenters and then returned unopposed at the 1774 general election. At the beginning of 1780 he was reported to be in poor health and did not stand at the 1780 general election. He died on 2 February 1783. His monument in Stanstead church is inscribed: “He was an assiduous and able Member of Parliament, actuated by the purest patriotism, attached to no party, until a firm conviction engaged him in an early and strenuous opposition to the American war”. He had married Jane Wowen, daughter of John Wowen, sugar refiner, of Hackney on 12 February 1763 but had no children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Feilde, Paul 1711 births 1783 deaths People from Hertfordshire People educated at Westminster School, London Members of Lincoln's Inn British MPs 1768–1774 British MPs 1774–1780 Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies