Sir William Congreve, 2nd Baronet

Sir William Congreve, 2nd Baronet KCH FRS (20 May 1772 – 16 May 1828) was an English inventor and rocket artillery pioneer distinguished for his development and deployment of Congreve rockets, and a Tory Member of Parliament (MP).

He was son of Lt. General Sir William Congreve, 1st Baronet, the Comptroller of the Royal Laboratories at the Royal Arsenal and raised in Kent, England. He was educated at Newcome's school in Hackney, Wolverhampton Grammar School and Singlewell School in Kent. He then studied law at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1793 and MA in 1796. In 1814 he succeeded his father as second Baronet Congreve.

In 1803 he was a volunteer in the London and Westminster Light Horse, and was a London businessman who published a polemical newspaper, the Royal Standard and Political Register, which was Tory, pro-government and anti-Cobbett. Following a damaging libel action against it in 1804, Congreve withdrew from publishing and applied himself to inventing. Many years previously, several unsuccessful experiments had been made at the Royal Laboratory in Woolwich by Lieut General Thomas Desaguliers. In 1804, at his own expense, began experimenting with rockets at Woolwich.

Congreve was awarded the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Hanoverian army's artillery in 1811, and was often referred to as "Colonel Congreve", later made Major general in the same army. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March that year. He was also awarded the Order of St. George following the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 and 1816 he was made Knight Commander of the Royal Guelphic Order (KCH). In 1821 he was awarded the Order of the Sword by the King of Sweden.

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