Richard Hart Davis (8 June 1766 - 21 February 1842) was a British merchant and

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...

politician who served 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 of ...

for both

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...

and

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

Merchant career

Davis was a successful merchant in Bristol trading with the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

. In 1810, he was said to have made £200,000 by "getting possession of all the Spanish wool in the kingdom". In 1803, he joined the

Society of Merchant Venturers The Society of Merchant Venturers is a charitable organisation in the English city of Bristol. The society can be traced back to a 13th-century guild which funded the voyage of John Cabot to Canada. In 1552, it gained a monopoly on sea trading ...

Parliamentary career

Davis was elected to Parliament in the 1807 general election as the MP for

taking the seat from Whig MP

William Tufnell William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

. He didn't speak during this period until he stepped down from his seat allowing his son,

Hart Davis Hart Davis (1791–1854) was a British parliamentarian. Davis matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford in 1809, and entered Lincoln's Inn in 1810. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Colchester (UK Parliament constituency), Colchester from 1812 ...

, to take the seat. He was elected as MP for

for 15 days before Parliament was dissolved for the 1812 general election where he received a personal letter from then Prime Minister

Lord Liverpool Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827. He held many important cabinet offices such as Foreign Secret ...

who wished him luck in his election against the Radicals.

Political positions

Davis opposed

Catholic relief The Roman Catholic Relief Bills were a series of measures introduced over time in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries before the Parliament of Great Britain, Parliaments of Great Britain and the Parliament of the United Kingdom, Unit ...

Personal life

Davis' son,

, was also a Tory MP.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Richard Hart 1766 births 1842 deaths English merchants Tory MPs (pre-1834) Members of the Society of Merchant Venturers UK MPs 1807–1812 UK MPs 1812–1818 UK MPs 1818–1820 UK MPs 1820–1826 UK MPs 1826–1830 UK MPs 1830–1831