Edward Stillingfleet Cayley

Edward Stillingfleet Cayley (13 August 1802 – 25 February 1862) was a British Liberal Party politician.

He was elected at the 1832 general election as a member of parliament for North Riding of Yorkshire, and held the seat until his death in 1862, at the age of 59. He advocated free trade in Parliament and went to Rugby School and Brasenose College, Oxford, thus breaking the Cayley tradition of going to Cambridge.

After graduating from Oxford, Cayley took up residence in North Yorkshire where he engaged in farming. He also undertook studies in history, economics, and philosophy to supplement his "dead language" formal education. Caley became a "barrister-at-law" with membership in the Inner Temple. As a magistrate and barrister, his doors were always open for counsel. He promoted the Yorkshire and other agricultural societies as a speaker and writer. Thus, Cayley became well-known and highly respected by the farmers of his district, so much so that they called on him to represent them in Parliament. At the 1832 general election he stood for election in the two-member county constituency of North Riding of Yorkshire as an independent of Liberal sympathies and a friend of the interests of small agriculturalists, 'unassisted by the aristocracy on either side' and was elected a member of parliament , behind William Duncombe a Tory with major landholdings in the Riding, but ahead of John Charles Ramsden a former Whig MP for Yorkshire who had the support of the Whigs but was a West Riding industrialist. Cayley held the seat until his death in 1862, at the age of 59.

As an independent member of Parliament, Cayley fought against "inequalities of taxation". He served on the Agricultural distress and Hand-loom weavers committees

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