Benjamin Handley (9 January 1784 – 16 May 1858) was an English soldier and Liberal politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

from 1832 to 1835. His family were prominent in

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

during the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Biography

Handley was the third son of William Handley of Newark. He entered the army in 1805 and served in the 9th Light Dragoons in South America and in the

Peninsular War The Peninsular War (1808–1814) was fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Kingdom of Portugal, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French ...

. In 1813, whilst crossing the

Tagus The Tagus ( ; ; ) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales between Cuenca and Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally westward, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean in Lisbon. Name T ...

river, his boat capsized. Although he survived, his cousin (also called

Benjamin Benjamin ( ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the younger of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel, and Jacob's twe ...

) who was in the same boat drowned. After returning to England, he lived at Pointon, Lincolnshire. At the 1832 general election he was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, a seat that he held until 1835. Handley died at Pointon at the age of 74.

References

External links

1784 births 1858 deaths UK MPs 1832–1835 Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies People from South Kesteven District People from Newark-on-Trent {{England-UK-MP-stub