Rowland Hunt

Rowland Hunt (13 March 1858 – 30 November 1943) was an English politician. The Lord of the Manor of Baschurch in Shropshire,[1] he sat in the House of Commons from 1903 to 1918 as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ludlow.[2]

Early life and family

Born at Market Harborough, Leicestershire,[3] Hunt was the son of Rowland Hunt (1828-1878), of Boreatton Hall, Baschurch, Shropshire and his wife Florence Marianne, daughter of Richard B. Humfrey, of Kibworth Hall, Leicestershire, and Stoke Albany House, Northamptonshire.[1][4] The Hunts were one of the principal families of north Shropshire.[5] Hunt's younger sister Agnes Hunt (1866–1948) worked with physically disabled people;[4] his uncle George Ward Hunt was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Disraeli.[5]

Hunt was educated at Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge.[1]

He served with Northamptonshire Militia for ten years,[6] the Lovat Scouts during the Second Boer War, and later became a Major in the City of London Yeomanry[7] in 1914 at the start of the First World War.[6]

Hunt was a county cricketer for Shropshire, mainly as a wicket keeper, between 1879 and 1881.[8] and later Master of Foxhounds of the Wheatland Hunt in Shropshire.[6]

In 1889, Hunt married Georgina Veronica Davidson, daughter of Colonel Duncan Davidson of Tulloch Castle in Dingwall. They had two sons and one daughter.[1][7] He later married Harriette Evelyn Hunt.[1][7]

Political career

Robert Jasper More, the Liberal Unionist MP for Ludlow, died in November 1903.[9] Hunt was selected by the Ludlow constituency's Conservatives and its Liberal Unionists as the joint Unionist candidate for the resulting by-election.[5] He then briefly joined the National Party in 1917, then the Conservatives.

During a parliamentary debate on the bill which became the Representation of the People Act 1918, he opposed the extension of the voting franchise to women:

"There are obvious disadvantages about having women in Parliament. I do not know what is going to be done about their hats. How is a poor little man to get on with a couple of women wearing enormous hats in front of him?"[10]

Hunt was also antisemitic, believing a Jewish plutocracy was secretly conspiring to subvert political life.[11]

In local government, Hunt was one of the founder members of Shropshire County Council in 1889. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1880 and Deputy-Lieutenant in 1931 for the county of Shropshire.[6]

He died at Lindley Green, Broseley, Shropshire, in November 1943 aged 85.[3]

References
  1. Arthur G. M., Hesilridge (1916). Debrett's House of Commons and The Judicial Bench 1916. London: Dean & Son. p. 85. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  2. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "L" (part 4)
  3. Percival, Tony (1999). Shropshire Cricketers 1844-1998. A.C.S. Publications, Nottingham. p. 17. ISBN 1-902171-17-9.Published under Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians.
  4. Sankey, A.E.; Hutchins, Roger. "Agnes Hunt". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34054. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. "Election Intelligence". The Times. London, England. 8 December 1903. p. 7. Retrieved 20 June 2017 – via The Times Digital Archive.
  6. Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes, 1942. p. 983.
  7. "Obituary: Major Rowland Hunt". The Times. London, England. 1 December 1943. p. 7. Retrieved 20 June 2017 – via The Times Digital Archive.
  8. Shropshire Cricketers 1844-1998, pages 17, 46.
  9. "Obituary: Mr Jasper More, MP". The Times. London, England. 27 November 1903. p. 6. Retrieved 20 June 2017 – via The Times Digital Archive.
  10. Gillett, Francesca (29 April 2018). "Women's suffrage: 10 reasons why men opposed votes for women". BBC News. Retrieved 20 December 2019.
  11. Jay P. Corrin, Catholic Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democracy (University of Notre Dame Press, 2002)
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