Edward Bouverie (senior)

Edward Bouverie was born 5 Sept. 1738, the second son of Sir Jacob Bouverie, MP, 1st Viscount. Folkestone, and Mary Daughter and heiress of Bartholomew Clarke of Hardingstone, Northants. Married Harriet Falkner, daughter of Sir Everard Falkner, ambassador to the Porte, 30 June 1764. They had three sons and five daughters. Educated at Eton 1753-6 and Christchurch, Oxford 1757.

As the second son, Bouverie had to some extent make his own way in the world which he did by his marriage to Harriet, a renowned London beauty and socialite. On his marriage Bouverie bought Delapré for £22,000 from Sir Charles Hardy, Governor of New York, the husband of the Mary Tate, the last of the Tate family, who had owned the estate since their purchase of the former nunnery on its dissolution.

Bouverie was first elected to parliament for Salisbury in 1761, a seat under the patronage of the Bouverie family, which he occupied until his nephew Viscount Folkestone came of age and could take up the seat in 1771. In Parliament he followed an independent line. In 1763 he supported the radical MP John Wilkes when he was charged with seditious liable for an article attacking George III, but voted with Administration on the expulsion of Wilkes from parliament in 1769. At various times he was listed as a Whig supporter and at others as a Tory.

Bouverie attempted to return to parliament in 1774 offering himself at Northampton hoping for the support of the Compton interest, but withdrew without making the canvass. Although he considered standing at a by-election in 1782 and general election in 1784 he did not stand again until 1790 when he won one of the Northampton seats.

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