Edward Bolton King

Who was Edward Bolton King?

Edward Bolton King was a British Whig politician from Umberslade in Warwickshire.

He was the son of Edward King, Vice Chancellor of the County of Lancaster, and nephew of Capt James King and of Rt. Revd. Walker King, Bishop of Rochester. He was High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1830, and at the 1831 general election he was elected as a Member of Parliament for Warwick. He was re-elected in 1832 and 1835, but was defeated at the 1837 general election.

After his defeat he became prominent in the Warwickshire Association for the Protection of Agriculture and stood against the Peelite candidate at the 1847 General Election. In the 1857 general election, he was returned unopposed as one of the two MPs for South Warwickshire. The nomination process took place at the Shire Hall in Warwick, where King was nominated by Sir Francis Shuckburgh, who described King as "no Radical but a Whig Conservative". In his acceptance speech, King stated that he had pledged himself to be independent of all political parties, but would support Lord Palmerston, who he believed deserved credit for the satisfactory conclusion of the Crimean War. He served only two years as MP for South Warwickshire, and did not contest the 1859 general election. He was latterly Chairman of the South Warwickshire Liberal Association.