Richard Honyman

Sir Richard Bempdé Johnstone Honyman, 2nd Baronet (4 May 1787 – 23 February 1842) was a Scottish official of the British East India Company who served for six years in the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Orkney and Shetland.

Honyman was the second son of Sir William Honyman, 1st Baronet, SCJ (Lord Armadale), of Armadale in Sutherland and Graemsay in Orkney. His mother Mary was a daughter of the notorious judge Lord Braxfield. The family claimed maternal descent from Sir Robert Stewart, an illegitimate son of King James V of Scotland.

He was educated in England at Eton, and in 1806 he joined the British East India Company as a writer (junior clerk). After several promotions he became deputy commercial resident in Ramnad in 1809, and returned to Britain in 1811. He finally left the East India Company in 1816.

Honyman's father Sir William had large landholdings in Orkney, where he had exerted significant influence on the parliamentary representation since the 1780s. Sir William's brother Robert Honyman (c. 1765–1848) had been returned as Orkney's MP from 1796 to 1806, when he was succeeded by Sir William's oldest son Colonel Robert Honyman until 1807. The Colonel had died of fever in Jamaica in 1808, and when Sir William's negotiations secured the seat for his family again at the 1812 general election, Richard Honyman enjoyed the support of the outgoing Whig MP Malcolm Laing. Honyman won eight of the twelve votes cast.

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