Colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...

Rowland Burdon, VD, DL, JP (19 June 1857 – 1 August 1944) was an English landowner and Conservative Party politician from

County Durham County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...

. He sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, 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 ...

from 1918 to 1922.

Early life and family

Burdon was the son of the Reverend John Burdon, from Castle Eden in County Durham. He was educated at

Repton School Repton School is a 13–18 co-educational, private, boarding and day school in the public school tradition, in Repton, Derbyshire, England. Sir John Port of Etwall, on his death in 1557, left funds to create a grammar school which was th ...

and

University College, Oxford University College, formally The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University commonly called University College in the University of Oxford and colloquially referred to as "Univ", is a Colleges of the University of Oxf ...

. In 1887, he married Mary Arundell, the daughter of Wyndham Slade of Monty's Court in

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England. It is a market town and has a Minster (church), minster church. Its population in 2011 was 64,621. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century priory, monastic foundation, owned by the ...

, Somerset.

Career

Burdon was

Lord of the Manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

of both Castle Eden and Little Eden, and lived at the Castle, Castle Eden. He was appointed a deputy lieutenant of County Durham in 1900, and served as High Sheriff of Durham in 1907. He was also a Justice of the Peace (JP) for County Durham, and after serving as lieutenant colonel commanding the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the

Durham Light Infantry The Durham Light Infantry (DLI) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1968. It was formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 68th (Durham) Regiment of Foot (Light Infantry) and ...

he became Honorary Colonel of the 5th Battalion in 1911. He was awarded the

Volunteer Decoration The Volunteer Officers' Decoration, post-nominal letters VD, was instituted in 1892 as an award for long and meritorious service by officers of the United Kingdom's Volunteer Force. Award of the decoration was discontinued in the United Kingdom ...

in 1898. At the December 1910 general election, Burdon unsuccessfully contested South East Durham, a constituency which had been held by

Liberal Unionists The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886 by a faction that broke away from the Liberal Party. Led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain, the party established a political ...

from 1886 to January 1910, when the sitting Liberal Unionist Frederick Lambton was defeated by the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...

candidate Evan Hayward. Burdon had been nominated for the contest by

Lord Londonderry Marquess of Londonderry, of the County of County Londonderry, Londonderry ( ), is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. History The title was created in 1816 for Robert Stewart, 1st Marquess of Londonderry, Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Londonderry ...

, who told the selection meeting of the South East Durham Conservative Association that the candidate should be "well-known, popular, and living in the constituency". Burdon accepted the nomination as a duty in a time of crisis, asserting that "a man who shirked his duty was as much a traitor to his country as the man who betrayed it in a military sense". ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' described him as "a strong local candidate" who "may possibly recover Mr. Lambton's former seat", but the swing of 3.6% was not enough. Burdon halved Hayward's majority, to 1,182 votes (7.8% of the total), down from 15% in January 1910. He was elected at the 1918 general election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Sedgefield division of County Durham. Standing as a

Coalition Unionist The Coalition Coupon was a letter sent to parliamentary candidates at the 1918 United Kingdom general election, endorsing them as official representatives of the Coalition Government. The 1918 election took place soon after British victory in the ...

(a supporter of the

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

led by

David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. A Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, he was known for leadi ...

), he won the newly created seat in a three-way contest, with a majority of 826 votes over the second-placed candidate, Labour Party candidate John Herriotts. He did not contest the 1922 general election, when Herriotts won the seat for Labour. Burdon died at Castle Eden on 1 August 1944, aged 87. In October 1947 his daughter Mrs Sclater-Booth presented the Castle Eden Vase to the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, in his memory. The glass vase was a 6th-century

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

"claw beaker" which had been found by a labourer working on a hedge on the Castle Eden estate in about 1775, in the time of his great-grandfather Rowland Burdon MP.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Burdon, Rowland 1857 births 1944 deaths British Army colonels 19th-century British Army personnel Military personnel from County Durham People from Castle Eden People educated at Repton School Alumni of University College, Oxford Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1918–1922 High sheriffs of Durham Deputy lieutenants of Durham Volunteer Force officers Durham Light Infantry officers