Melville Portal

Who was Melville Portal?

Melville Portal JP, DL was a British Conservative Party politician from Hampshire.

Portal was awarded an M.A. degree by the University of Oxford in 1844.

He was elected as a Member of Parliament for North Hampshire at a by-election in April 1849, following the resignation of the Conservative MP Sir William Heathcote. He was re-elected unopposed in 1852 at a sparsely attended hustings in Winchester, and retired from the House of Commons at the 1857 general election.

He was appointed in December 1852 as a Deputy Lieutenant of Hampshire, and by 1863 he was also a Justice of the Peace for the county.

He was nominated as High Sheriff of Hampshire in 1861 and in 1862, and was appointed to the office in 1863, when his address was given as Laverstoke House, Mitcheldever Station.