BACON, Sir Edmund, 5th Bt. (1693-1738), of Gillingham, Norf.

‘Gillingham Sir Edmund’, as Bacon was called in his county to distinguish him from his namesake of Garboldisham,HMC Portland, vi. 152. was descended from Lord Keeper Bacon, the father of Francis Bacon. He is described as ‘an attached servant to Sir Robert Walpole, who upon his being a Member of Parliament procured him a grant for a term of years of certain lighthouses worth £500 a year’.HMC Egmont Diary, i. 87. In the published list of Members voting on the excise bill in 1733 he is shown as having ‘a grant of crown lands at Chatham and a brother in the customs’.Gent. Mag. 1733, p. 575. His first recorded speech was made on 12 Nov 1724, when he seconded the Address. He is subsequently recorded as speaking for the Government on the army, 23 Nov. 1724 and 25 Jan. 1727;Knatchbull Diary. a vote of credit, 12 Apr. 1727; the Address, 21 Jan. 1729 and 13 Jan. 1730; the army, 29 Jan. 1730; Dunkirk, 12 Feb. 1730; the Hessians, 3 Feb. 1731; and foreign affairs, 23 Feb. 1731.HMC Egmont Diary, i. 5, 12, 43, 126, 143; iii. 330. According to the 2nd Earl of Oxford, he was known as ‘Eggs and Bacon for his wise speech in the House of Commons when the salt duty was taken off’ in 1730.HMC Portland, loc. cit. He also spoke against Sir John Barnard’s scheme for converting the national debt in 1737. He died 4 Oct. 1738.