Henry Warburton

Henry Warburton (12 November 1784 – 16 September 1858) was an English merchant and politician, and also an enthusiastic amateur scientist.

Elected as Member of Parliament for Bridport, Dorset, in the 1826 general election, he held the seat for 15 years until his resignation from the House of Commons in 1841. He was returned to the Commons at a by-election in November 1843, for Kendal, but did not seek re-election in 1847.

On Parliament he was active in the reform of bankruptcy, the repeal of stamp duty on newspapers, introduction of the penny post and in the campaigns of the Anti-Corn Law League.

The son of John Warburton of Eltham, Kent, a timber merchant, he was educated at Eton College, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was admitted 24 June 1802, aged 18. He was in the first class of the college examinations as freshman in 1803, and as junior soph in 1804. He was admitted scholar on 13 April 1804, graduated B.A. (being twelfth wrangler and placed next to Ralph Bernal) in 1806, and proceeded M.A. in 1812. George Pryme knew him in his undergraduate days, and both Bernal and Pryme were later his colleagues in politics.

For some years after leaving the university Warburton was engaged in the timber trade at Lambeth, but his taste for science and politics ultimately led to his abandoning commercial life. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society on 16 February 1809. William Hyde Wollaston was his closest friend, and in the autumn of 1818 they made a tour together on the continent. When Michael Faraday desired to become F.R.S., Warburton felt objections to his election, thinking that he had in one matter treated Wollaston unfairly. Correspondence ensued, and these objections were dispelled.

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