The Hon. Peter John Locke King (25 January 1811, Ockham, Surrey – 12 November 1885, Weybridge) was an English politician.
King was Member of Parliament for East Surrey from 1847 to 1874. He won some fame as an advocate of reform, being responsible for the passing of the Real Estate Charges Act 1854, and for the repeal of a large number of obsolete laws.
King, second son of Peter King, 7th Baron King. Lord Chancellor Peter King, 1st Baron King, was his great-great-grandfather and William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace, his elder brother.
He was born at Ockham, Surrey, on 25 Jan. 1811. He was educated at Harrow School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1831, and M.A. 1833.[1]
In 1837 he unsuccessfully contested East Surrey, but was elected for that constituency on 11 Aug. 1847, and retained his seat until the conservative reaction at the general election in February 1874. He supported an alteration in the law of primogeniture for many sessions. On 15 March 1855 he delivered a speech in which he showed emphatically "the crying injustice of the law". He served as High Sheriff of Surrey for 1840 [2].
On 11 Aug. 1854 he passed the Real Estate Charges Act, according to which mortgaged estates descend with and bear their own burdens. In the session of 1856 he was successful in obtaining the repeal of 120 sleeping statutes which were liable to be put in force from time to time. He also waged war against the statute law commission, and more than once denounced it as a job. King introduced a bill for abolishing the property qualification of members, which passed the House of Lords on 28 June 1858, and in eight successive sessions he brought forward the county franchise bill, on one occasion, 20 Feb. 1851, defeating and causing the resignation of the Russell ministry.
He succeeded in carrying through the House of Commons a bill for extending the £10 franchise to the county constituencies, so as to include every adult male who came within the conditions of the borough suffrage. He was also well known for his advocacy of the ballot and of the abolition of church rates, and for his strenuous opposition to the principle and practice alike of endowments for religious purposes.
He died at Brooklands, Weybridge, on 12 Nov. 1885. He married, on 22 March 1836, Louisa Elizabeth, daughter of William Henry Hoare of Mitcham Grove, Surrey. She died in 1884, leaving two sons and four daughters.
Contents |
Four letters which King wrote to The Times in 1855 on Chancery Reform are reprinted in A Bleak House Narrative of Real Life, 1856, pp. 55–66.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir Edmund Antrobus Henry Kemble |
Member of Parliament for East Surrey with Thomas Alcock 1847–1865 Charles Buxton 1865–1871 James Watney 1871–1874 1847–1874 |
Succeeded by William Grantham James Watney |
| Honorary titles | ||
| Preceded by Samuel Paynter |
High Sheriff of Surrey 1840 |
Succeeded by William Leveson-Gower |