Lord Edward Thynne

Lord Edward Thynne (23 January 1807 – 4 February 1884) was an English nobleman. After a short career as an army officer, he sat in the House of Commons for two periods, separated by 26 years, and opposed parliamentary reform on both occasions.

A duellist and philanderer who outlived his two wives, Thynne gambled away his own wealth and that of his first wife. In 1881, the aged Thynne was described by Vanity Fair magazine as a "hoary old reprobate".

Thynne was the 8th child of Thomas Thynne, 2nd Marquess of Bath and Isabella Byng, daughter of the 4th Viscount Torrington. He was educated at Charterhouse and then matriculated in 1825 to Oriel College, Oxford. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in March 1828, he was commissioned in April 1828 as a second lieutenant in the Duke of York's rifle corps.

He retired from the British Army in June 1830 when he married Elizabeth Mellish, the heir to a wealthy naval contractor. The novelist Emily Eden described him in a letter at that time as "totally unlike all the Thynnes I ever saw—full of fun and dashes out everything that comes into his head".

At the 1831 general election his father bought him a seat as Member of Parliament (MP) for the rotten borough of Weobley, alongside his brother Lord Henry Frederick Thynne. The borough was disenfranchised under the Reform Act 1832, which he and his brother had repeatedly voted against.

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