Peter King (British politician)

The Hon. Peter John Locke King (25 January 1811, Ockham, Surrey – 12 November 1885, Weybridge) was an English politician.

King sat and held one of the two seats as

Biography

King was the second son of Peter King, 7th Baron King. Lord Chancellor Peter King, 1st Baron King, was his great-great-grandfather and William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace, his elder brother.^[2]

He was born at Ockham, Surrey, on 25 January 1811. He was educated at Harrow School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1831, and M.A. 1833.^[2][3]

In 1837 he unsuccessfully contested East Surrey. He served as High Sheriff of Surrey in 1840.^[4] In the election of 1847 he ran again and this time was elected MP for East Surrey on 11 August. He retained his seat until more entrenched partisanship set in and a Conservative reaction defeated him at the general election in February 1874. He supported an alteration in the law of primogeniture for many sessions. On 15 March 1855 he delivered a speech in which he showed emphatically "the crying injustice of the law".^[2]

On 11 August 1854 he passed the Real Estate Charges Act, under which mortgages after the debtor's demise limit themselves to the property itself (they "descend with and bear their own burdens"). Without this

He piloted through the Commons the bill that extended the £10 (rental value of home per annum, whether owned or let) franchise to the county constituencies, i.e. as for every adult male who qualified for borough suffrage. He was well known for his advocacy for every man to have the ballot and for abolition of church rates, and for his strenuous opposition to the principle and practice alike of endowments for religious purposes. He died aged 74 at Brooklands, Weybridge, on 12 November 1885.^[2] His probate was resworn the next year at £266,860 (equivalent to about £30,700,000 in 2021).^[5] His London home was 38 Dover Street, Middlesex,^[5] (in St James's/Haymarket or Cornelia Street, Islington)^[6]

Family and wealth

On 22 March 1836 King married Louisa Elizabeth, daughter of William Henry Hoare of Mitcham Grove, Surrey. She died in 1884. They had two sons and four daughters; Anna Clementina King 1837-1931 they included ^[2] Hugh F. Locke King, entrepreneur who inherited a share of his late parent's estate. He took over Brooklands and used his father's wealth to found and finance the creation of the Brooklands motor racing circuit and aviation field.^[7]

Publications

King published:^[2]

1. Injustice of the Law of Succession to the Real Property of Intestates, 1854; 3rd edit. 1855.
2. Speech on the Laws relating to the Property of Intestates, 15 March 1855.
3. Speech on the Laws relating to the Property of Intestates in the House of Commons, 17 February 1859.
4. Speech on the Law relating to the Real Estates of Intestates, 14 July 1869.

Four letters which King wrote to The Times in 1855 on Chancery Reform are reprinted in A Bleak House Narrative of Real Life, 1856, pp. 55–66.^[2]

See also

• Earl of Lovelace

Notes

References

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Boase, George Clement (1892). "King, Peter John Locke". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 31. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 148. Endnotes:
  • Hansard, 1849, ciii. 88 et seq.
  • Statesmen of England, 1862, No. 46, with portrait
  • Drawing-room Portrait Gallery, 2nd ser. 1859, with portrait;
  • Foster's Peerage;
  • His obituary, The Times, 14 November 1885, p. 9.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "King of Ockham, Peter King, 1st Baron § Peter John Locke King". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 805.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Peter King