William Graves (c.1724 – 30 April 1801) was a British politician. He was the eldest son of Rear-Admiral Thomas Graves and his second wife Elizabeth Budgell, and the brother of Thomas Graves.''Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland'' (1829): Irish peerages: Graves - reference to William Graves p.904.
/ref> William was educated at

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

and studied law at the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...

(1739), where he was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in 1747. He became a

Master in Chancery The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equ ...

in 1761. He sat in Parliament as the MP for

West Looe West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

in Cornwall from 1768 to 1774 and for

East Looe East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

from 1775 to 1783, 1784 to 1786 and 1796 to 1798. He died unmarried in 1801.

References

1724 births 1801 deaths Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Members of the Middle Temple Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for constituencies in Cornwall British MPs 1768–1774 British MPs 1774–1780 British MPs 1780–1784 British MPs 1784–1790 British MPs 1796–1800 {{England-GreatBritain-MP-stub