biography text
The Bouveries were a Huguenot family, descended from Laurence des Bouverie, a silk manufacturer at Frankfort-on-Main, who came to England in the time of Elizabeth I and settled at Canterbury. Sir Edward des Bouverie bought Longford Castle in 1717 from Henry Hare, 3rd Lord Coleraine. Returned on petition against William Benson at a by-election for Shaftesbury as a Tory in 1719, he was classed as Opposition, voting against the peerage bill in that year. He was again successful at the elections of 1722 and 1727, voting against the Government in all recorded divisions in which he took part. He died 21 Nov. 1736.