Peter King (British politician)

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

King was Member of Parliament (MP) for East Surrey from 1847 to 1874. He won some fame as an advocate of reform, being responsible for the passing of the Real Estate Charges Act 1854, and for the repeal of a large number of obsolete laws. Increasingly as politics in the United Kingdom turned toward left-right politics he sided with the mainstream progressive wing of the Liberal Party.

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.

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.

In 1837 he unsuccessfully contested East Surrey. He served as High Sheriff of Surrey in 1840. 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".

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