Charles Abbot, 1st Baron Colchester

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Charles Abbot, 1st Baron Colchester, PC, FRS (14 October 1757 – May 8, 1829) was a British statesman. He served under six prime ministers, serving in cabinet positions from 1801 to 1817.

Born in Abingdon, Charles Abbot was the son of Dr John Abbot, rector of All Saints, Colchester, and, by his mother's second marriage, half-brother of the famous Jeremy Bentham. From Westminster School Charles Abbot passed to Christ Church, Oxford, at which he gained the chancellor's medal for Latin verse as well as the Vinerian Scholarship. On 14 February 1793, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society.^[1] In 1795, after having practised twelve years as a barrister, and published a treatise proposing the incorporation of the judicial system of Wales with that of England, he was appointed to the office previously held by his brother of clerk of the rules in the king's bench; and in June of the same year he was elected MP for Helston, through the influence of the Duke of Leeds.

In 1796 Abbot commenced his career as a reformer in parliament by obtaining the appointment of two committees the one to report on the arrangements which then existed as to temporary laws or laws about to expire, the other to devise methods for the better publication of new statutes. To the latter committee, and a second committee which he proposed some years later, it is owing that copies of new statutes were thenceforth sent to all magistrates and municipal bodies.

Abbot's efforts effected the establishment of the Royal Record Commission, the reform of the system which had allowed the public money to lie for some time at long interest in the hands of the public accountants, by charging them with payment of interest, and, most important of all, the act for taking the first census, that of 1801. On the formation of the Addington ministry in March 1801 Abbot became Chief Secretary and Privy Seal for Ireland; and in the February of the following year he was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons, a position that he held with universal satisfaction until 1817, when an attack of erysipelas compelled him to retire. In response to an address of the Commons, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Colchester, with a pension of £4000, of which £3000 was to be continued to his heir. His speeches against the Roman Catholic claims were published in 1828.

He was succeeded by his eldest son Charles Abbot, 2nd Baron Colchester (1798–1867), Postmaster General in 1858; and subsequently by his son Reginald Abbot, 3rd Baron Colchester (1842–1919), upon whose death the title became extinct.

[edit] References

1. ^ List of Fellows of the Royal Society. Retrieved on 2007-01-13.

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by Gilbert Elliot Stephen Lushington	Member of Parliament for Helston with Stephen Lushington 1795–1796 Richard Richards 1796–1799 Lord Francis Godolphin Osborne 1799–1801 1795–1801	Succeeded by Parliament of the United Kingdom
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Parliament of Great Britain	Member of Parliament for Helston with Lord Francis Godolphin Osborne 1801–1802 1801–1802	Succeeded by Viscount FitzHarris John Penn
Preceded by Sir John Leicester, Bt William Wickham	Member of Parliament for Heytesbury with Viscount Kirkwall 1802	Succeeded by Viscount Kirkwall Charles Moore
Preceded by Sir Henry Watkin Dashwood, Bt Charles Moore	Member of Parliament for Woodstock with Sir Henry Watkin Dashwood, Bt 1802–1806	Succeeded by Sir Henry Watkin Dashwood, Bt William Eden
Preceded by Sir William Dolben, Bt Sir William Scott	Member of Parliament for Oxford University with Sir William Scott 1806–1817	Succeeded by Sir William Scott Robert Peel
Political offices
Preceded by Viscount Castlereagh	Chief Secretary for Ireland 1801–1802	Succeeded by William Wickham
Preceded by Sir John Mitford	Speaker of the House of Commons 1802–1817	Succeeded by Charles Manners-Sutton
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by New Creation	Baron Colchester 1817–1829	Succeeded by Charles Abbot