Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston

Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston, FRS (4 December 1739 – 17 April 1802), was a British politician.

Temple was a son of Henry Temple (son of Henry Temple, 1st Viscount Palmerston) and Jane, daughter of Sir John Barnard, Lord Mayor of London.

He was born into 'the Ascendancy', the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. His family owned a vast country estate in the north of County Sligo in the west of Ireland. He succeeded to the peerage in 1757, and was educated at Clare College, Cambridge from 1757 to 1759.

As a member of the British House of Commons, he represented the constituencies of East Looe between 1762 and 1768, Southampton between 1768 and 1774, Hastings between 1774 and 1784, Boroughbridge between 1784 and 1790, Newport, Isle of Wight between 1790 and 1796, and Winchester between 1796 and his death in 1802.

He was appointed to the Board of Trade in 1765, was a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty between 1766 and 1777, and was a Lord of the Treasury from 1777 to 1782.